Jleto  tracts  for  rtje 


NATIONAL   IDEALS 


RACE-REGENERATION 


UC-NRLF 


412 


flew  Utacts  tov  tfoe  Uimes 


NATIONAL  IDEALS  AND 
RACE-REGENERATION 


NEW  TRACTS  FOR  THE  TIMES 

Promoted  by  the  National  Council  of  Public  Morals,  Holborn 
Hall,  London,  W.C. 

TRACTS  PUBLISHED 

"  The  Problem  of  Race- Regeneration."  By  Dr. 
Havelock  Ellis  (Editor,  Contemporary  Science 
Series,  etc.). 

"The  Methods  of  Race-Regeneration."  By  C.  W. 
Saleeby,  M.D.,  F.R.S.E.,  F.Z.S.  (Author  of 
"  Parenthood  and  Race  Culture,"  etc. ) . 

"  The  Declining  Birth-Rate  —  Its  National  and  Inter- 
national  Significance."  By  A.  Newsholme,  M.D. 

"  Problems  of  Sex."     By  Prof.  J.  Arthur  Thomson  and 

Prof.  P.  Geddes. 
"  National   Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration."     By  Rev. 

R.  F.  Horton,  M.A.,  D.D. 
"  Womanhood     and     Race-Regeneration."     By    Mary 

Scharlieb,  M.D.,  M.S. 

TRACTS  IN  PREPARATION 

"  Literature  —  The  Word  of  Life  or  of  Death."     By 

Rev.  William  Canon  Barry,  D.D. 
"  Modern  Industrialism  and  Race-Regeneration."     By 

C.  F.  G.  Masterman,  M.A.,  M.P. 
"  Religion  and   Race-Regeneration."     By  Rev.  F.   B. 

Meyer,  D.D. 
"  Social  Environment  and  Moral  Progress."     By  A. 

Russell  Wallace,  O.M.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 
"The    Spiritual    Life    and    Race-Regeneration."     By 

the  Bishop  of  Durham. 
"  Education   and   Race-Regeneration."     By   Sir   John 

Gorst,  LL.D.,  K.C.,  F.R.S. 


IRew  ZTracte  tot  tbe 


NATIONAL  IDEALS 

AND 

RACE- REGENERATION 


BY 

The  Rev.  R.  F.  HORTON,  M.A.,  D.D. 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1912 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION 

By  the 

KEY.  JAMES  MARCHANT 

THESE  Tracts  might  have  been  called  "New  Tracts 
for  New  Times"  since  they  interpret  the  signs  and 
prophecies  of  a  new  world  in  the  making,  demanding 
:he  application  of  loftier  ideals,  more  widely  embracing 
principles,  and  surer  methods  of  advance  than  have 
hitherto  prevailed.  They  do  not  merely  deplore  and 
combat  the  manifest  evils  of  the  past  and  the  present 
changing  conditions,  but  reveal  the  foundations  of  a 
richer  civilisation.  The  era  of  destructive  criticism, 
of  improving  material  environment  alone,  of  lavish 
care  for  a  short  season  of  the  unfit  merely  to  turn  them 
adrift  at  the  critical  age,  of  reliance  upon  forms  and 
drugs,  hospitals  and  penitentiaries,  police  and  prisons 
and  upon  unfettered  liberty  to  correct  its  own  abuses, 
is  mercifully  passing  away.  We  are  living  in  a  transi- 
tion period,  but  nearer  the  future  than  the  past.  The 
wonderful  nineteenth  century  seems  already  to  have  be- 
come history,  and  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury has  closed.  The  new  spirit  of  the  age,  which  ap- 
peared in  wondrous  guise  on  the  horizon  at  the  watch  of 
the  centuries,  is  becoming  articulate.  It  is  evident  to 
all  who  possess  the  historic  vision  that  we  are  living  in 
the  twilight  before  the  dawn.  The  rapid,  ruthless 

259910 


New  Tracts  for  the  Times 


progress  and  verily  bewildering  discoveries  and  devel- 
opments of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  opening  up  of  virgin  fields  of  reform  and  of  untrod- 
den and  unsuspected  paths  of  advance,  were  heralds  of 
a  new  day,  of  the  nearness  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

These  Tracts,  small  in  bulk,  but  written  by  eminent 
authors,  deal  with  these  profound  and  commanding 
themes  from  this  inspiring  outlook.  If  they  revert  to 
outstanding  present-day  evils,  it  is  because  these  men- 
ace the  future  and  are  a  crime  against  posterity.  Ac- 
count is  taken  of  the  persistent  and  ominous  demand 
for  the  divorce  of  religion  from  morals  and  education; 
of  the  lowering  of  the  ideal  of  marriage  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  a  temporary  contract  for  that  permanent 
union  which  is  necessary,  to  take  no  higher  ground,  for 
the  nurture  and  education  of  the  next  generation;  of 
the  commercial  employment  of  married  women,  re- 
sulting, to  a  serious  extent,  in  the  neglect  and  dis- 
ruption of  family  life  and  the  displacement  and  unem- 
ployment of  men;  and  of  the  economic,  social,  and  sel- 
fish influences  which  involve  late  marriages  and  an  ever- 
falling  birth-rate.  The  writers  consider  the  grave  and 
urgent  questions  of  the  wastage  of  child-life ;  the  weak- 
ening and  pollution  of  the  link  between  the  generations ; 
and  the  uncontrolled  multiplication  of  the  degenerate, 
who  threaten  to  swamp  in  a  few  generations  the  purer 
elements  of  our  race.  They  examine  the  disquieting 
signs  of  physical  deterioration;  the  prevalence  of  vice, 
the  increase  of  insanity  and  feeble-mindedness,  and 
their  exhaustless  drain  upon  free-flowing  charity  and 


General  Introduction 


the  national  purse;  the  wide  circulation  of  debasing 
books  and  papers  which  imply  the  existence,  to  a  de- 
plorable extent,  of  low  ideals  amongst  a  multitude  of 
readers;  and  some  of  the  manifold  evils  of  our  indus- 
trial system  which  cause  the  hideous  congestion  of  slum- 
dom  with  its  irreparable  loss  of  the  finer  sensibilities, 
of  beauty,  sweetness  and  light.  These  and  like  griev- 
ous ills  of  the  social  body  are  treated  in  the  "New 
Tracts  for  the  Times,"  from  the  moral  and  spiritual 
standpoint,  by  constructive  methods  of  redemption,  with 
the  knowledge  of  our  corporate  responsibility  and  in  re- 
lation to  their  bearing  on  the  future  of  the  race. 

The  supreme  and  dominant  conception  running 
through  these  Tracts  is  the  Eegeneration  of  the  Eace. 
They  strike  not  the  leaden  note  of  despair,  but  the 
ringing  tones  of  a  new  and  certain  hope.  The  regen- 
erated race  is  coming  to  birth;  the  larger  and  nobler 
civilisation  is  upon  us.  It  is  already  seen  that  it  is 
criminal  to  live  at  the  expense  of  the  future,  that  chil- 
dren must  be  wisely  and  diligently  educated  for  parent- 
hood, that  vice  must  be  sapped  at  its  foundations,  that 
it  is  much  more  radically  necessary  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  the  race  through  parentage  than  through 
change  of  environment,  that  the  emphasis  must  shift 
from  rescue  to  prevention.  These  Tracts  turn  the 
searchlight  of  the  twentieth  century  upon  such  problems 
and  seek  to  hasten  the  time  when  true  religion  will  oc- 
cupy its  rightful  place  in  our  human  lives,  and  woman 
her  true  place  in  the  home  and  society,  and  industry 
will  not  deaden  and  demoralise,  and  life  will  be  happier, 


New  Tracts  for  the  Times 


sweeter    and    holier    for    every    man,    woman    and 
child. 

These  Tracts  must  awaken  a  sensitive,  enlightened 
social  conscience  throughout  Great  and  Greater  Britain, 
which  is  being  welded  into  a  more  compact  Empire,  and 
give  voice  and  new  life  to  the  long-silent  and  thwarted 
aspirations  for  a  regenerated  humanity. 

In  their  several  ways,  the  authors  of  these  "New 
Tracts  for  the  Times,"  each  being  alone  responsible 
for  his  or  her  own  contribution,  adopt  this  bracing 
and  hopeful  attitude  towards  the  transcendent  prob- 
lems which  it  is  the  object  of  the  promoters  to  eluci- 
date. 

J.  M. 

National  Council  of  Public  Morals, 

Holborn  Hall,  London,  W.  C. 

September,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PROEM .     4 

PROLOGUE  5 

CHAPTER 

I    WHAT  is  A  NATION? 11 

II    THE  NATIONAL  IDEAL  OF  BRITAIN  .     .     .     .21 

III  THE  ELEMENTS  OF  THE  NATIONAL  IDEAL  .     .31 

IV  THE  SPIRITUAL  IDEAL 48 

EPILOGUE 55 


PEOEM 

Is  it  degenerate  to  fall  from  wealth, 

To  live  in  straitened  shores,  on  scanter  fare, 
To  put  on  homespun,  and  to  house  with  bare 

Simplicity,  the  hardy  nurse  of  health  ? 

Is  it  degenerate,  if  power  or  stealth 
Pluck  from  our  brow  uncertain  coronet, 
Or  unsubstantial  pride  of  sword  or  gun, 
Making  a  realm  on  which  sun  never  set, 
A  realm  of  Spirit  which  needeth  not  the  Sun? 

Nay,  these  are  accidents,  which  never  yet 
Could  hurt  nobility  —    But  one  thing  may 
Brand  on  our  brow  the  mark  "  Degenerate  " : 

To  lose  the  vision  of  the  truly  great 

And  lapse  from  effort  on  the  starry  way. 

K.  F.  H. 


PEOLOGUE 

IN  the  preface  of  the  " Phenomenology  of  Mind" 
Hegel  has  a  passage  which  is  hardly  less  appropriate  to 
the  opening  of  the  twentieth  than  it  was  to  the  opening 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  I  beg  leave  to  quote  it  in 
full,  as  an  introduction  to  all  that  I  have  to  say  about 
a  national  ideal.  Speaking  of  what  the  mind  wants 
from  philosophy,  he  says :  — 

"The  beautiful,  the  holy,  the  eternal,  religion,  love  —  those 
are  the  bait  required  to  awaken  the  desire  to  bite;  not  the 
notion,  but  ecstasy,  not  the  march  of  cold  necessity  in  the 
subject  matter,  but  ferment  and  enthusiasm  —  these  are  to  be 
the  ways  by  which  the  wealth  of  the  concrete  substance  is  to 
be  stored  and  spread  out  to  view.  With  this  demand  there 
goes  the  strenuous  effort?  almost  perfervidly  zealous  in  its 
activity,  to  rescue  mankind  from  being  sunken  in  what  is 
sensuous,  vulgar,  and  of  fleeting  importance,  and  to  raise 
men's  minds  to  the  stars;  as  if  men  had  quite  forgotten  the 
Divine,  and  were  on  the  verge  of  finding  satisfaction,  like 
worms,  in  mud  and  water.  Time  was  when  man  had  a  heaven 
decked  and  fitted  out  with  endless  wealth  of  thought  and  pic- 
tures. The  significance  of  all  that  is  lay  in  the  thread  of 
light  by  which  it  was  attached  to  heaven.  Instead  of  dwelling 
in  the  present  as  it  is  here  and  now,  the  eye  glided  away  over 
the  present  to  the  Divine,  away,  so  to  say,  to  a  present  that 
lies  beyond.  The  mind's  gaze  had  to  be  directed  under  com- 
pulsion to  what  is  earthly  and  kept  fixed  there;  and  it  has 
needed  a  long  time  to  introduce  that  clearness,  which  only  ce- 
lestial realities  had,  into  the  crassness  and  confusion  shroud- 

5 


Prologue 

ing  the  sense  of  earthly  things,  and  to  make  attention  to  the 
mere  present  as  such,  which  was  called  experience,  of  interest 
and  value.  Now  we  have  apparently  the  need  for  the  opposite 
of  all  this:  man's  mind  and  interest  are  so  deeply  rooted  in 
the  earthly  that  we  require  a  like  power  to  get  them  raised 
above  that  level.  His  spirit  shows  such  poverty  of  nature  that 
it  seems  to  long  for  the  mere  pitiful  feeling  of  the  Divine  in 
the  abstract,  and  to  get  refreshment  from  that,  like  a  wanderer 
in  the  desert  craving  for  the  merest  mouthful  of  water.  By 
the  little  which  can  thus  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  human  spirit 
we  can  measure  the  extent  of  its  loss." 

Men  once  believed  in,  and  sought,  a  City  of  God,  and 
built  their  cities  on  earth  according  to  a  pattern  in  the 
heavens.  The  nations  of  Europe,  and  notably  our  own, 
were  founded  in  a  vivid  consciousness  of  the  Divine. 
The  nation  was,  no  less  than  Israel's,  God's  chosen ;  and 
the  king  held  his  authority  of  divine  right,  symbolised 
by  the  sacred  unction.  But  now  the  vision  of  heavenly 
things  has  faded,  and  a  nation  is  merely  a  conglomerate 
of  people  occupying  a  common  country,  trying  to  govern 
itself  by  a  majority  of  votes.  Its  main  object  is  to  ex- 
press what  the  majority  desire;  and  as  the  majority  de- 
sire money,  comfort,  pleasure,  and  such-like  earthly 
things,  the  national  ideal  insensibly  sinks  to  a  base  and 
debasing  earthiness. 

The  famous  book  from  which  I  quote  was  concluded, 
says  Hegel,  at  midnight  before  the  battle  of  Jena,  that 
is,  on  October  13th,  1805.  With  the  irresistible  armies 
of  Napoleon  girdling  the  city  —  in  that  year  of  the 
death  of  Nelson  at  Trafalgar  —  the  philosopher  brought 

6 


Prologue 

his  study  of  the  Absolute  to  an  end,  and  showed  the 
world  its  need  of  higher  ideals.  Nations  were  being 
obliterated  under  the  effacing  hand  of  Napoleon.,  and  our 
own  country  was  reaching  the  heights  of  her  self-con- 
sciousness of  resistance  to  the  conqueror  of  Europe. 

The  philosopher's  intuition  saw  the  peril  of  the  mod- 
ern world,  and  his  lofty  contention  for  the  reality  and 
permanence  of  the  spiritual  pointed  out  the  way  on 
which  subsequent  thinkers  have  moved,  the  way  which 
we  now  follow  with  more  assured  steps.  The  world  be- 
gins to  see  that  its  ideals  are  to  be  renewed  not  by  the 
abolition  of  the  spiritual,  as  thinkers  of  the  last  genera- 
tion taught,  but  by  the  rehabilitation  of  the  spiritual,  as 
Kant,  Hegel,  and  Schelling  said. 

But  Hegel  is  not  able  to  lead  us  unaided  into  the  land 
of  our  desires,  as  is  plain  from  his  view  of  war,  a  view 
natural  perhaps  in  the  days  of  Napoleon  and  Nelson, 
and  yet  startling  in  a  philosopher  who  pursued  his  med- 
itations unhindered  by  the  battle  of  Jena.  War  he  con- 
sidered "an  indispensable  means  of  maintaining  the 
moral  health  of  the  nations,  preserving  their  plasticity, 
and  counteracting  the  tendency  of  settled  habits  to  de- 
generate into  conventional  routine." 

If  a  grave  and  spiritual  philosopher  defends  such  a 
position,  we  can  hardly  be  astonished  that  a  soldier  like 
Lord  Eoberts  should  instil  into  boys  the  doctrine  of 
"  My  country,  right  or  wrong,"  as  the  true  patriotism, 
and  urge  upon  them  the  duties  of  moral  discipline,  in 
order  that  they  may  defend  their  country,  "  right  or 

7 


Prologue 

wrong,"  in  arms;  though  we  may  still  wonder  that  a 
leading  paper  should  applaud  this  doctrine  as  lofty.1 

But  this  leads  us  to  ask  seriously :  What  is  our  na- 
tional ideal  ?  Do  we  think  out  what  it  is  we  are  aiming 
at?  If  the  divine  and  celestial  ideals  have  gone  by 
default  in  the  modern  world,  have  we  taken  the  trouble 
to  reconstruct  the  ideal  of  a  nation,  to  connect  it  with 
the  spiritual  which  is  the  real,  and  deliberately  to  shape 
our  course  towards  the  attainment  of  a  preconceived 
end  ?  The  crude  militarism  which  passes  for  patriotism, 
and  even  the  vague  imperialism  which  is  supposed  to 
enlarge  and  even  to  elevate  our  national  idealism,  are 
not  the  reasoned  conceptions  of  our  thinkers;  they  are 
only  the  confused  notions  of  the  man  in  the  street,  the 
off-hand  opinions  of  leader-writers  and  (we  must  allow 
it)  the  blatant  interests  of  the  military  profession,  or 
of  certain  commercial  undertakings,  clothing  themselves 
in  high-sounding  phrases.  The  Army  and  the  Fleet 
naturally  confuse  patriotism  with  military  and  naval 
activity,  but  we  cannot  expect  to  get  our  thinking  done 
by  specialists  whose  mental  powers  are  taxed  to  the  ut- 
most in  devising  arms  of  defence  or  offence.  And 
Imperialism,  though  an  imposing  term,  when  called  to 
account  often  means  very  little  more  than  a  blurred  and 
blustering  idea  that  "  trade  follows  the  flag/' 

The  echoes  of  past  theories,  which  were  based  on  facts 
now  obsolescent,  fill  the  ears  of  the  modern  world.  We 

1 "  My  country  right  or  wrong,  and  right  or  wrong  my  coun- 
try, is  the  sentiment  most  treasured  in  the  breast  of  anyone 
worthy  the  name  of  man." 

8 


Prologue 

still  talk  as  if  Napoleon's  plan  of  conquering  nations 
and  countries  were  feasible,  and  as  if  the  object  of  a 
nation  were  to  annex  other  nations,  or  to  possess  itself 
of  scattered  territory  over  the  world.  The  word  "  Im- 
perial "  misleads  us.  We  forget  that  there  is  nothing 
which  this  age  wants  less  than  an  emperor,  Caesarean  or 
Napoleonic,  nay,  that  at  the  bottom  the  whole  movement 
of  the  modern  world  is  towards  a  condition  of  things  in 
which  emperors  and  empires  will  be  impossible. 


National  Ideals  and  Race- Regenera- 
tion 

CHAPTEE  I 

WHAT   IS   A   NATION? 

WE  require  therefore  some  exact  definitions ;  we  want  .to 
know,  what  is  a  nation,  and  what  is  a  worthy  national 
ideal ? 

And  there  are  two  things  which  give  us  some  hope 
of  reaching  an  answer  to  our  questions,  two  things  which 
must  be  taken  together  if  the  value  of  either  is  to  be 
appreciated. 

1.  The  nation  is  acquiring  a  soul;  and  2,  an  interna- 
tional life  is  within  sight.  A  federation  of  nations  be- 
gins to  be  the  world's  ideal. 

1.  The  nation  is  acquiring  a  soul.  That  is  a^fact  of 
the  modern  world  which  deserves  close  attention.  After 
the  break  up  of  the  Napoleonic  world,  Metternich  could 
say :  "  There  are  no  longer  nations  in  Europe,  but  only 
parties'."  But  for  a  century  we  have  been  moving  to- 
wards the  consolidation  and  the  spiritual  identity  of 
nations.  The  national  spirit  is  apt  to  be  bellicose,  and 
the  "  armed  camp  "  of  Europe  seems  to  result  from  na- 
tional antagonisms.  As  we  shall  see  presently,  that  is 

11 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

the  danger  which  is  now  to  be  overcome.  But  the 
growth  of  a  national  consciousness,  a  national  senti- 
ment, a  national  pride,  is  in  itself  a  definite  gain.  The 
world  would  be  a  sorry  place  if  all  individuals  were 
alike.  It  would  also  be  a  sorry  place  if  there  were  no 
nations,  but  only  a  homogeneous  body  of  humanity, 
without  light  and  shade  or  perspective.  Nationality  is 
as  valuable  to  the  world,  as  individuality  is  to  a  nation. 
When  a  nation  first  discovers  its  identity,  it  may  be 
turbulent  with  the  riot  of  youth;  but  the  birth  of  a 
nation  is  a  gain  to  mankind.  When  Italy  was  a  "  geo- 
graphical expression/'  she  was  interesting  to  the  tourist, 
the  artist,  the  archaeologist;  but  when  she  became  a 
nation  she  was  at  once  of  interest  for  humanity.  The 
birth  of  Germany,  more  recent,  and  more  disturbing  to 
the  other  nations  of  the  world,  is  yet  a  factor  in  the 
world's  progress  which  history  will  appreciate  better 
than  we  do.  Every  nation  has  a  character,  a  complex- 
ion, a  certain  mental  individuality.  It  is  not  wise  to 
attempt  the  delineation  of  nations  in  epigrams.  We 
cannot  say,  as  once  was  said,  "  France  claims  dominion 
of  the  land,  Britain  of  the  sea,  Germany  of  the  air." 
We  cannot  say  that  Britain  is  practical,  France  scien- 
tific, Germany  philosophic.  But,  looking  more  deeply 
and  inclusively,  we  can  distinctly  recognise  each  of 
these  nations,  and  all  other  nations,  as  individuals  which 
the  world  cannot  possibly  spare.  To  lose  one  is  a  world 
loss.  We  have  not  ceased  to  mourn  the  loss  of  Poland; 
we  tremble  for  the  life  of  Finland.  A  Power  which 
seeks  to  destroy  and  absorb  nations  is  not  the  world's 

12 


What  Is  a  Nation? 


benefactor,  but  must  be  repressed  by  the  combined  judg- 
ment of  all  nations.  We  cannot  spare  Switzerland  be- 
cause it  is  a  little  conglomerate  of  French,  German,  and 
Italian  states.  Switzerland  is  a  nation.  Its  national 
spirit  is  unique;  its  contribution  to  the  nations  indis- 
pensable. We  cannot  lose  Holland.  Its  spiritual  his- 
tory and  its  spiritual  life  are  as  valuable  to  the  world 
as  they  are  to  itself. 

As  we  value  our  own  nationality  we  are  bound  to. 
respect  that  of  others.  If  we  consider  ours  valuable  to 
the  world,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that  other  nationalities 
also  are  valuable  to  the  world. 

What  is  required  to-day  is  to  think  out  what  is  meant 
by  this  individuality  of  a  nation,  and  to  feel  the  full 
force  and  influence  of  nationality  in  our  own  lives,  in 
order  to  learn  how  to  respect  other  nationalities.  We 
in  this  country  have  struggled  hard  for  liberty,  for  the 
right  of  each  man  to  be  himself,  and  to  live  his  life 
according  to  his  bent  and  faculty.  When  we  come  to 
the  logic  of  that  situation  we  perceive  that  it  involves 
this,  that  the  right  which  each  claims  for  himself  should 
be  extended  to  everyone  else.  We  in  this  country  real- 
ise our  national  soul;  we  were  never  more  conscious 
of  it,  or  prouder  of  it,  than  we  are  to-day.  The  logic 
of  the  situation  points  (we  can  hardly  yet  say  that  it 
leads)  to  our  recognition  of  the  value  of  each  nation- 
ality. We  are  bound,  though  we  do  not  yet  see  it,  to 
wish  that  Germany  should  be  as  German  as  England  is 
English;  and  that  every  nation  should  have  the  flavour 
of  its  individuality  as  we  have  the  flavour  of  ours. 

13 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

It  will  be  our  object  presently  to  ask  what  is  the  soul 
of  our  nation,  that  we  may  realise  it,  and  develop  it. 
But  for  the  moment  let  us  pause  to  see  how,  owing  to 
the  development  of  the  souls  of  nations  — 

2.  An  international  life  is  within  sight.  It  is  on 
this  fact  that  the  attention  of  mankind  is  gradually 
concentrating.  We  do  not  say  now  with  Metternich: 
"  There  are  no  longer  nations  in  Europe,  but  only  par- 
ties." We  rather  say,  and  are  glad  to  say :  "  The  na- 
tions in  Europe  are  now  more  individual,  more  self- 
conscious,  more  sensitive,  more  patriotic,  than  they  ever 
were."  But  a  new  thought  has  entered  the  world:  the 
nations  can  supplement  one  another,  and  form  in  their 
combination,  without  sacrifice  of  their  individuality,  one 
organism  of  humanity.  The  thought  is  difficult  of  ful- 
filment. No  one  can  prophesy  when  the  fulfilment  will 
come.  But  the  thought  has  entered  the  world,  not 
again  to  be  lost.  We  expect,  not  a  universal  empire,  all 
peoples  under  the  domination  of  a  ruler,  or  of  a  ruling 
race  —  that  crude  imperialism  is  visionary  and  out  of 
date,  impossible,  and,  if  it  were  possible,  undesirable  — 
but  all  peoples,  organised  and  developed  on  those  natural 
lines  which  we  call  national,  brought  into  a  common 
consciousness  of  solidarity,  related  to  each  other  by  just 
such  ties  of  mutual  respect,  held  in  this  relation  by  just 
such  bonds  of  law,  as  at  present  hold  men  together  in 
a  civilised  society.  The  tentative  efforts  of  the  Hague 
tribunal  seem  to  be  flaunted  and  defied  by  the  very 
Powers  that  made  them.  And  time  may  yet  be  needed. 
Centuries  have  passed  since  Grotius  developed  his  amaz- 

14 


What  Is  a  Nation? 


ing  argument  for  the  law  of  nations.  He  was  over- 
whelmed with  obloquy,  and  his  very  statue  at  Delft  was 
assailed  by  the  fierceness  of  theological  hate.  But  his 
principle  has  won  the  day.  Progress  may  be  more  rapid 
than  we  at  present  anticipate.  But,  swift  or  slow,  no 
one  now  can  doubt  that  human  society  is  moving  on  to 
this  consummation.  Nations  will  be  as  individuals, 
some  big,  some  little,  some  rich,  some  poor,  some  richly 
endowed  with  thought,  some  with  the  gift  of  action, 
some  artistic,  some  industrial ;  but  these  variously  gifted 
individuals  will  live  together  in  concord  and  mutual 
aid,  not  grudging  each  other's  prosperity,  because 
each  shares  in  the  good  of  all.  The  divisions  caused 
by  distance,  the  varieties  of  language  and  religion,  an- 
cient animosities  and  misunderstandings,  will  be  over- 
come precisely  as  similar  divisions  within  the  boundaries 
of  a  single  State  have  been  overcome.  Distance  disap- 
pears when  events  all  over  the  world  are  known  within 
the  day.  Before  the  establishment  of  Esperanto  the 
difficulties  of  Babel  are  practically  surmounted.  The 
interpreter  is  everywhere;  and  we  are  moving  towards 
the  surrender  of  age-long  animosities,  and  the  acquire- 
ment of  a  firm  basis  of  understanding  and  mutual 
agreement,  in  the  recognition  of  the  solidarity  of  the 
race,  and  of  that  common  heart  of  humanity  which  is 
only  ignored  so  long  as  men  do  not  know  one  another. 
"Do  not  introduce  me  to  that  man,"  said  Sidney 
Smith ;  "  I  want  to  hate  him,  and  I  cannot  hate  a  man 
I  know."  The  process  of  mutual  introduction  among 
the  nations  goes  on  by  literature,  and  by  travel,  and  by 

15 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

commerce,  at  so  accelerating  a  rate,  that  the  day  is  fast 
approaching  when  the  earth  will  be  covered  with  the 
mutual  knowledge  of  the  peoples,  and  the  differences 
which  spring  from  ignorance  will  disappear. 

When,  therefore,  we  try  to  present  to  ourselves  afresh 
our  national  ideal,  it  must  be  done  in  full  view  of  the 
international  ideal.  We  wish  to  make  our  nation  what 
it  should  be,  in  order  that  it  may  take  its  proper  place, 
and  play  its  appointed  part,  in  the  corporate  life  of  all 
nations.  It  is  this  novel  feature  —  the  quickened  and 
quickening  sense  of  the  world  as  one,  and  of  the  nations 
related  to  one  another  as  formerly  families  were  related 
in  a  nation  —  that  makes  the  new  discussion  of  the 
national  ideals  necessary.  Too  many  are  thinking  upon 
this  subject  in  terms  of  a  past  which,  we  may  hope, 
will  never  return.  A  nation  no  longer  means  a  society 
and  organisation  of  individuals  against  the  world,  but 
a  society  and  organisation  of  individuals  for  the  world. 
What  the  State  is  in  the  United  States  of  America,  a 
nation  is  to  be  in  the  united  nations  of  the  world. 

But  in  considering  our  own  national  ideal  we  are 
confronted  by  a  difficulty  which  results  from  the  im- 
perial expansion  of  our  little  country;  and  the  discus- 
sion cannot  proceed  fruitfully  until  we  have  cleared  our 
minds  upon  this  subject.  Is  the  nation  equivalent  to 
the  Empire,  or  is  the  Empire  a  confederation  of  kindred 
or  allied  nations  ?  The  attempt  to  think  imperially  has 
produced  a  ludicrous  confusion  in  many  well-meaning 
British  minds.  They  lose  sight  of  their  own  nation, 
and  its  great  ideals,  and  try  to  feel  themselves  part  of 


What  Is  a  Nation? 


an  empire,  another  pseudo-nation,  circling  the  globe. 
And  in  this  pseudo-nation  the  overwhelming  majority, 
probably  four-fifths,  are  people  of  a  different  colour,  a 
different  religion,  and  a  different  political  provenance. 
Nothing  but  confusion  and  degeneration  can  come  from 
imperialism  thus  understood;  the  fifty  or  sixty  millions 
of  white  men  and  Christians  will  be  dragged  down  and 
swamped  by  the  three  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of 
Mohammedans,  Hindoos,  and  Negroes. 

Let  us,  therefore,  be  careful  to  establish  the  principle 
that  the  British  nation  is  and  remains  a  nation.  Its 
ideal  is  to  be  determined  in  the  light  of  its  origin  and 
its  experience.  Its  value  to  the  Empire  lies  in  its  re- 
taining its  own  identity,  valuing  its  own  past,  perpetu- 
ating its  own  principles.  In  its  expansion,  its  whole 
object  is  to  foster  and  bring  up  daughter  nations.  The 
Empire  is  not  to  be  one  nationality,  but  a  group  of  na- 
tions united  by  one  crown,  and  held  together  by  the 
reverence  and  gratitude  which  daughters  feel  for  their 
mother.  We  desire  the  Dominion  of  Canada  to  be  a 
nation,  born  out  of  the  side  of  Great  Britain,  but  not 
identical  with  it,  nor  permanently  dependent  upon  it. 
We  look  forward  to  a  day  when  the  great  nation  of  Can- 
ada will  both  teach  and  lead,  in  the  light  of  the  new 
world,  her  revered  mother  from  whom  she  sprang.  We 
expect  Australia  to  be  a  nation,  the  United  States  or 
Commonwealth  of  the  Southern  Hemisphere.  That 
nation  must  be  very  different  from  Britain ;  climate,  dis- 
tance, the  proximity  of  islands  like  New  Guinea,  and 
empires  like  China  and  Japan,  present  for  her  problems 

17 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

different  from  our  own.  That  daughter  nation  must 
by  many  experiments  work  out  her  political  salvation, 
and  we  must  hope  for  the  day  when  she  will  have  suc- 
cessful experiments  to  commend  to  the  attention  of  the 
mother  country.  New  Zealand  again,  by  its  position, 
by  its  natural  resources,  and  by  all  its  development  hith- 
erto, is  marked  out  as  a  nation  of  the  future,  a  nation 
which  will  stand  to  Australia  as  Britain  has  stood  to 
Europe,  but  with  this  incalculable  advantage,  that  it  is 
akin  to  Australia,  and  united  to  it  by  the  same  Crown. 
We  must  anticipate  also,  though  with  much  trepidation, 
the  nationality  of  South  Africa.  That  vast  population 
of  Bantu-Africans,  with  its  narrow  fringe  of  Dutch 
and  English,  must  work  out  its  destiny,  united  to 
Britain  by  the  Crown,  but  in  practical  independence  of 
British  control.  The  ideal  of  South  Africa  must  be 
formed  on  the  spot;  it  cannot  be  slavishly  copied  from 
Britain.  The  negroes,  Pagan  or  Mohammedan  or 
Christian,  must  always  be  in  the  majority.  The  white 
men  must  learn  how  to  govern  a  State  with  the  English 
traditions  but  under  these  altered  conditions.  Already 
British  interference  is  regarded  as  an  impertinence. 
Where  the  problem  is  so  strange,  the  preconceived  judg- 
ments of  the  inhabitants  of  the  British  Isles  are  treated 
with  a  tolerant  contempt.  In  India  our  presence  and 
influence  have  resulted  in  producing  for  the  first  time 
in  history  an  Indian  nationality.  We  have  made  a 
rude  political  unity  of  the  numerous  races  and  tongues 
between  the  Himalayas  and  Cape  Comorin.  To  incor- 
porate this  vast  mass  of  humanity  in  the  British  nation 

18 


What  Is  a  Nation? 


would  be  impossible,  and  dangerous  to  our  national  ex- 
istence. We  can  have  but  one  object  in  view,  and  that 
is,  to  train  and  consolidate  India  as  a  nation,  and  to 
teach  it  the  art  of  self-government  on  our  own  model, 
but  with  such  differences  as  inevitably  result  from  the 
vastness  of  the  country  and  the  population,  and  from 
the  temperament  and  ideals  which  prevail  in  that  great 
peninsula.  In  Egypt  we  have  a  similar  object  in  view ; 
we  desire  an  Egyptian  nation  like  our  own,  or  as  like  as 
it  can  be  with  a  Mohammedan  population  and  under  a 
Mohammedan  rule. 

The  Empire,  united  by  the  crown  of  the  King,  is  thus 
to  be  conceived  of,  not  as  a  nation,  but  as  a  group  of  na- 
tions, and  the  ideal  of  the  Empire  is  that  each  nation  in 
it  should  have  an  independent,  free  and  harmonious  de- 
velopment, only  influenced  by  the  example  of  that  nation 
within  its  borders  to  which  it  looks  up  as  in  a  certain 
sense  the  mother,  or  the  foster-mother,  of  all. 

There  remains  yet,  before  we  can  approach  the  discus- 
sion of  our  national  ideal,  the  perplexing  problem  pre- 
sented by  Ireland,  and  even  by  Wales.  These  parts  of 
the  United  Kingdom  claim  a  separate  national  identity. 
They  do  not  wish  to  be  torn  asunder  from  the  Empire, 
but  they  claim  some  such  rights  of  internal  growth  and 
autonomy  as  are  conceded  to  such  nations  as  Canada  or 
New  Zealand.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  a  genuine  national 
ideal  can  ever  be  maintained  if  a  nation  is  to  be  made 
up  of  a  willing  majority  and  an  unwilling  minority.  If 
by  "  nation  "  the  Irish  mean  their  own  island,  as  against 
Britain,  what  is  gained  by  insisting  on  the  idea  of  na- 

19 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

tionality  ?  It  becomes  a  separatist  idea ;  it  hinders  the 
very  national  life  which  in  Britain  we  wish  to  conceive 
and  to  preserve.  The  case  of  Wales  is  not  so  extreme 
or  so  exasperated  as  that  of  Ireland;  and  probably  the 
Welsh,  if  pushed  for  an  answer,  would  ask  to  be,  with 
England  and  Scotland,  an  integral  part  of  the  one  Brit- 
ish Nation. 

Our  discussion  must  therefore  proceed  on  the  tacit 
assumption  that  Ireland  is  to  be  treated  separately,  and 
must  be  directed,  as  Canada  or  Australia  is,  by  its  own 
national  ideal.  There  is  nothing,  of  course,  to  hinder 
Ireland  from  adopting  the  British  ideal.  But  while 
Ireland  prefers  its  own  ideal,  nothing  is  gained  by  dilut- 
ing and  distorting  the  British  ideal  in  the  effort  to  in- 
clude a  reluctant  Ireland. 

We  have  now  clearly  defined  the  nature  of  our  inquiry. 
We  set  out  to  sketch  the  national  ideal  of  Great  Britain. 
We  leave  out  of  account  the  other  nations  of  the  Empire, 
though  always  with  the  assumption  that  the  British 
ideal  is  to  hold  them  all  together  in  an  honourable  and 
mutually  serviceable  political  unity.  And  we  do  not 
feel  that  to  exclude  these  nations  from  the  discussion  is 
any  derogation  from  their  dignity.  Eather  we  know 
that  we  serve  them  best  by  presenting  in  clear  and  con- 
vincing outline  the  ideal  of  the  mother  nation.  And 
further,  their  close  connection  with  us  is  a  step  towards 
the  achievement  of  the  ultimate  federation  of  all  the 
nations  on  earth,  which  is  the  ideal  held  by  all  wise  and 
seeing  persons,  not  in  Britain  only,  but  throughout  the 
world. 

20 


CHAPTEE  II 

THE  NATIONAL  IDEAL  OF  BRITAIN 

THE  first  thing  that  has  to  be  said,  especially  after  the 
line  of  reflection  which  we  have  been  following,  is,  that 
the  national  ideal  must  include  the  adequate  defence  of 
this  country  against  possible  external  aggression.  We 
live  in  hope,  and  preparation,  for  the  day  when  the  na- 
tions will  learn  war  no  more;  we  are  persuaded  that 
eventually  differences  between  nations  will  be  settled  as 
differences  between  individuals  are  already  settled  in  a 
civilised  country :  not  by  force,  but  by  law.  At  present 
we  see  only  the  faint  and  imperfect  beginnings  of  an 
international  tribunal ;  and  the  sanctions  of  international 
law  are  only  gaining  the  first  hesitating  recognition. 
While  we  wait  for  that  better  day,  we  must  all  recognise 
the  necessity  of  being  forearmed  against  possible  foes. 
We  know  that  it  is  not  possible  to  surrender  our  naval 
and  military  establishment.  We  must  make  such  pro- 
vision to  keep  our  command  of  the  high  seas  as  so  widely 
extended  an  empire  and  so  absolute  a  dependence  on 
foreign  supplies  for  food  demand.  We  must  train  our 
manhood  to  defend  our  shores,  and  also  to  secure  the 
scattered  members  of  the  imperial  federation.  And  the 
national  ideal  now,  as  ever,  requires  every  man  to  be 
ready,  if  the  country  calls,  to  lay  down  his  life  in  her 
defence.  There  is  nothing  in  human  life  more  honour- 

21 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

able  and  admirable  than  that  instinct  which  makes  a 
man  ready  to  die,  without  pause  or  question,  for  his 
fatherland.  No  one  can  see  without  emotion,  in  our 
colleges,  schools,  or  market-places,  the  monuments  to 
those  young  men  who  in  one  war  after  another  have  gone 
out,  leaving  behind  them  all  the  bright  prospects  of 
life  and  success  at  home,  to  die  for  their  country. 

I  remember  Cecil  Boyle,  cultured,  wealthy,  happy  in 
his  home  and  in  the  honour  paid  him  by  his  neighbours. 
He  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  leave  all  and  to  lead  his 
troop  of  yeomanry  to  South  Africa.  There  came  from 
him  a  brilliant  account  of  the  service  under  Colonel 
French,  and  a  telegram,  followed  by  the  slower  post,  to 
say  that  he  had  fallen  in  an  obscure  skirmish.  A  coun- 
try is  certainly  great  when  it  has  thousands  of  men  like 
him,  who  count  not  their  lives  of  value  when  their  coun- 
try demands  them.  We  may  believe  that  a  war  like  that 
in  South  Africa  was  wholly  unnecessary,  or  even  that  it 
was  brought  on  by  blundering,  by  misunderstanding  and 
misrepresentation,  or  by  the  corrupt  monetary  interests 
in  South  Africa  or  in  England;  we  may,  on  looking 
back,  see  how  foolish  it  was  to  sacrifice  £220,000,000  and 
twenty  thousand  lives,  valuable  as  Cecil  Boyle's,  only 
to  establish  more  securely  and  legally  the  inevitable 
dominance  of  the  majority  in  the  management  of  South 
African  affairs;  but  no  one  can  miss  the  value  and  im- 
portance of  that  spirit  in  our  country  which  made  her 
sons  ready,  without  forming  any  opinion  about  the  rights 
of  the  war,  to  put  their  lives  at  their  country's  disposal. 

22 


The  National  Ideal  of  Britain 


That,  I  imagine,  is  what  Lord  Koberts  meant  when  he 
advocated  the  doctrine  of  "  my  country,  right  or  wrong/' 
and  placed  the  highest  patriotism  in  obedience  to  that 
precept.  He  meant  that  in  every  country  the  men 
should  be  ready  to  give  their  lives  to  preserve  its  integ- 
rity and  independence;  and  he  knew  that  if  each  one 
had  to  decide  for  himself  whether  the  particular  cause 
was  just  and  fair,  that  generous  impulse  would  be  sick- 
lied o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought.  The  precept 
should  not  be  "  my  country,  right  or  wrong/'  but  rather : 
"  I  am  at  my  country's  disposal,  to  live  or  die  for  her 
life  and  her  security." 

The  white  cemeteries  that  dot  the  veld  in  South  Africa 
and  the  ocean  sown  with  the  bodies  of  our  brave  men, 

"  Whose  heavy-shotted  hammock-shrouds 
Drop  in  the  vast  and  wandering  deep," 

the  great  tradition  that  we  place  our  country  before  our 
own  lives  —  and,  thinking  of  what  England  has  done 
for  us,  ask,  What  can  we  do  for  England  ?  —  these  are 
part  of  our  national  life,  and  feed  the  springs  of  our 
national  service.  We  cannot  afford  to  dishonour  or  to 
weaken  this  dumb,  unselfish  heroism,  which  is  to  every 
country  its  first  and  greatest  possession. 

In  our  love  of  peace,  and  in  our  impatient  anticipa- 
tion of  the  better  day  when  arbitration  will  supersede 
the  arbitrament  of  war,  we  must  not  weaken  our  protest 
and  discredit  our  principles,  by  speaking  as  if  we  pro- 
posed to  abolish  the  national  defences,  or  as  if  we-under- 

23 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

rated  the  manliness,  courage  and  self -sacrifice  of  those 
who  elect  to  fight  our  battles  for  us  on  land  and  sea. 

We  look  wistfully  at  that  unique  example  of  William 
Penn  governing  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  and  secure 
against  the  warlike  Indians,  by  acting  on  the  principle 
of  non-resistance;  we  hope  that  some  day  a  great  coun- 
try will  dare  to  do  the  same;  we  would  give  anything 
that  our  own  country  might  be  great  enough  to  make 
the  quixotic  experiment.  But  we  know  that  such  an 
act  of  national  courage  would  only  avail  if  the  nation 
were  inspired  and  acted  as  one  man.  We  do  not  see 
how  such  a  unanimity  of  conviction  is  possible  in  our 
day.  That  a  small  minority  should  demand  it  may 
hasten  the  day  of  its  realisation ;  but  even  that  minority 
may,  without  any  inconsistency,  maintain  the  defences 
of  the  country  which  are  necessary  in  the  present  state 
of  the  world  and  the  present  temper  of  the  public  mind. 
A  man  may  believe  that  all  disease  could  be  avoided  by 
effectual  precautions;  that  inoculation,  operations,  and 
even  medicine,  might  under  right  conditions  become 
unnecessary.  But  though  he  argues  for  such  a  possi- 
bility, he  is  quite  justified,  and  must  not  be  charged  with 
inconsistency,  if,  meanwhile,  he  vaccinates  his  children 
and  calls  in  the  doctor  when  he  is  ill. 

But  while  we  recognise  heartily  the  necessity  for  mili- 
tary and  naval  armaments  of  defence,  and  treat  with 
honour  the  brave  men  who  enter  the  service,  we  cannot 
too  explicitly  insist  on  the  position  that  we  do  not  wish 
to  be  a  military  or  naval  state;  we  do  not  aim  at  con- 
quests ;  we  do  not  believe  that  any  assault  on  other  coun- 

24 


The  National  Ideal  of  Britain 


tries  is  justifiable;  we  strictly  and  absolutely  limit  our 
armaments  to  the  task  of  defence.  The  reason  for  in- 
sisting on  this  point  in  our  national  ideal  is  that  in  a 
sense  it  is  a  platitude  —  every  country  says  that  it  is 
only  armed  for  self-defence.  Even  when  Italy  invades 
Tripoli,  the  pretext  is  that  Italians  in  Tripoli  are  in 
danger  of  something  or  other.  Germany  might  invade 
England  on  the  pretext  that  only  so  can  she  gain  the 
supremacy  of  the  sea  and  an  outlet  for  her  surplus  popu- 
lation. As  a  platitude  the  principle  is  unnecessary  and 
somewhat  nauseating.  But  what  is  needed  is  to  raise 
the  platitude  to  the  height  of  a  dictate  of  the  national 
conscience.  We  must  draw  the  sharp  distinction,  and 
abide  by  it;  we  must  recognise  the  progress  which  has 
carried  us  so  far  from  the  days  of  Napoleon  and  the  other 
unscrupulous  conquerors  of  the  world.  We  must  ac- 
knowledge the  truth  brought  out  and  demonstrated  by 
Norman  Angell  in  his  "  Great  Illusion,"  that  conquest 
of  other  countries  is  no  longer  possible,  because  the 
nexus  of  commerce  and  international  finance  has  made 
us  all  so  essentially  one,  that  in  trying  to  hurt  another 
nation  we  hurt  ourselves  as  much,  or  more. 

A  waspish  nation  that  assails  another  may  fix  its  sting 
in  the  flesh  of  the  other ;  but,  leaving  its  sting  there,  it 
will  itself  die. 

The  distinction  we  draw  and  abide  by  is :  Our  arma- 
ments *  are  for  defence  and  not  for  offence;  while  we 
must  be  ready  to  repel  attack,  and  must  be  able  to  do  so 
effectually,  we  cannot  attack  others ;  we  cannot  -dream 
of  gaining  anything  by  naval  or  military  aggression. 

25 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

The  day  for  that  is  over.  Other  times  call  for  other 
methods.  Our  advance  in  the  world,  our  management 
of  our  own  dependencies,  our  commerce,  colonisation, 
and  spheres  of  influence  over  more  backward  countries, 
must  and  shall  be  carried  on  without  war. 

But  when  we  have  resolutely  set  aside  the  false  and 
archaic  ideals  of  militarism,  which  can  do  nothing  but 
mislead  us,  the  question  opens  up,  what  is  the  ideal  of 
a  nation  which  is  frankly  not  set  on  naval  conquest  or 
military  glory?  The  Comtist  theory  was  that  the  age 
of  militarism  had  passed  into  the  age  of  industrialism ; 
and,  under  the  authority  of  that  dictum,  the  world,  and 
especially  the  English-speaking  world,  has  thrown  itself 
into  industrial  expansion  with  a  military  ardour. 

Looking  at  our  own  country,  we  might  suppose  that, 
at  any  rate  since  the  Great  Exhibition  of  1851,  our  one 
consideration  has  been  to  develop  our  industries,  and  to 
extend  our  commerce.  The  national  ideal  might  seem 
to  be  to  produce  and  to  acquire  and  to  enjoy  material 
wealth.  With  that  dazzling  ideal  before  us,  it  has  be- 
come the  personal  ambition  and  aim  of  a  vast  proportion 
of  the  population  to  get  and  to  spend.  Now,  so  far  as 
this  misguided  ideal  has  taken  the  place  of  the  ideal  of 
militarism,  so  far  as  industrial  success  has  been  substi- 
tuted for  chivalry,  so  far  as  the  hero  is  now  the  man  of 
money  instead  of  the  man  of  the  sword,  we  have  reason 
to  deplore  the  change  as  a  change  for  the  worse.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  epoch,  Tennyson,  in  "  Maud,"  broke 
out  into  violent  invectives  against  the  sordid  results  of 
commercialism,  and  harked  back  to  the  sword  and  to 

26 


The  National  Ideal  of  Britain 


battles  as  the  one  way  of  preserving  the  nobility  of  na- 
tions. Who  can  help  sympathising  with  him?  Arms 
and  battles  have  their  horrors,  but  they  also  have  their 
heroism,,  their  glories,  their  self-sacrifice,  their  sense  of 
something  greater  than  personal  gain.  But  life  misled 
by  the  false  ideal  of  commercialism  becomes  sordid  and 
revolting.  The  world  is  becoming  conscious  of  a  miser- 
able deterioration,  a  kind  of  dry-rot,  resulting  from  this 
unrestrained  pursuit  of  wealth.  How  exhausting  is  the 
pursuit,  how  unsatisfying  the  result!  Men  are  every- 
where engaged  in  a  feverish  effort  to  produce  and  to 
acquire.  They  all  produce,  a  few  acquire.  Those  who 
do  not  acquire  envy  those  who  do ;  but  those  who  acquire 
are  far  from  enviable.  Their  lives  are  exhausted  in  vio- 
lent efforts  and  in  trivial  pleasures.  They  gradually 
realise  themselves,  when  they  have  built  their  palaces 
and  are  tearing  through  the  country  in  their  motor-cars, 
as  what  they  essentially  are  —  contemptible  and  aim- 
less atoms,  living  without  an  object  and  dying  without 
being  desired.  The  country  deluded  by  the  false  ideal 
of  commercialism  becomes  drab  and  dreary  and  sterile, 
and  an  almost  universal  sigh  of  moral  degeneracy  rises 
from  the  land. 

It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  bring  out  the  fact  that 
the  age  of  militarism  does  not,  or  ought  not  to,  pass  into 
the  age  of  commercialism,  but  into  the  age  of  brother- 
hood. Commercialism  is  not  the  end,  but  only  a  means 
to  an  end  which  must  be  kept  always  and  everywhere  in 
its  strictly  subordinate  position. 

Strictly  speaking,  the  ideal  of  commercialism  has  been 
27 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

a  fetish  which  has  never  deluded  the  elect  Apparently 
we  in  England  have  been  bent  on  making  money,  and 
everyone  has  given  a  lip-service  to  Mammon.  But  in  a 
dumb,  unexpressed  way  the  better  minds  have  followed 
another  principle.  Their  lips  have  murmured  Mam- 
mon, and  their  knees  have  been  bent  in  the  Temple  of 
Mammon ;  but  their  hearts  have  listened  to  the  prophets, 
Carlyle,  Buskin,  Tolstoy;  and,  though  no  doubt  with  a 
certain  faltering  which  always  comes  where  head  and 
heart  are  at  strife,  they  have  lived  by  a  totally  different 
ideal.  That  ideal,  followed  in  silence  by  the  few,  is 
gradually  coming  out  into  prominence,  to  be  recognised 
by  all.  It  is  that  national  ideal  which  we  have  now  to 
present  to  ourselves,  asking  seriously  whether  we  do  not 
at  heart  believe  in  it,  though  apparently  we  have  been 
bowing  to  the  image  of  gold  which  Nebuchadnezzar  the 
king  had  set  up.  Our  national  ideal  is  not  really  the 
production  and  acquisition  of  wealth  in  Adam  Smith's 
sense  of  that  term,  but  the  production  and  acquisition 
of  wealth  in  the  sense  which  Euskin,  going  back  on  its 
intrinsic  meaning,  taught  us  to  give  to  the  word. 

Our  prophets  have  spoken  in  the  land,  and  here  in 
England  at  any  rate  we  believe  what  has  been  sung  by 
Walt  Whitman  in  the  deaf  ears  of  his  countrymen :  — 

"  The  place  where  a  great  city  stands  is  not  the  place  of 
stretched  wharves,  docks,  manufactures,  deposits  of  pro- 
duce merely, 

Nor  the  place  of  ceaseless  salutes  of  newcomers,  or  the  anchor- 
lifters  of  the  departing, 


28 


The  National  Ideal  of  Britain 


Nor  the  place  of  the  tallest  and  costliest  buildings  or  shops 

selling  goods  from  the  rest  of  the  earth, 
Nor  the  place  of  the  best  libraries  and  schools,  nor  the  place 

where  money  is  plentiest, 
Nor  the  place  of  the  most  numerous  population. 

Where  the  city  stands  with  the  brawniest  breed  of  orators  and 

bards, 
Where  the   city  stands  that   is   beloved   by  these,   and   loves 

them  in  return  and  understands  them, 
Where  no  monuments  exist  to  heroes  but  in  the  common  words 

and  deeds, 

Where  thrift  is  in  its  place  and  prudence  is  in  its  place, 
Where  the  men  and  women  think  lightly  of  the  laws, 
Where  the  slave  ceases  and  the  master  of  slaves  ceases, 
Where  the  populace  rises  at  once  against  the   never  ending 

audacity  of  elected  persons, 
Where  fierce  men  and  women  pour  forth,  as  the  sea  to  the 

whistle  of  death  pours  its  sweeping  and  unript  waves, 
Where  outside  authority  enters  always  after  the  precedence  of 

inside  authority, 
Where  the  citizen  is  always  the  head  and  ideal,  and  president. 

mayor,  governor,  and  what  not,  are  agents  for  pay, 
Where  children  are  taught  to  be  laws  for  themselves,  and  to 

depend  on  themselves, 

Wliere  equanimity  is  illustrated  in  affairs, 
Where  speculations  on  the  soul  are  encouraged, 
Where  women  walk  in  public  processions  in  the  streets  the 

same  as  the  men, 
Where  they  enter  the  public  assembly  and  take  places  the  same 

as  the  men; 

Where  the  city  of  the  faithfulest  friends  stands2 
Where  the  city  of  the  cleanliness  of  the  sexes  stands, 
Where  the  city  of  the  healthiest  fathers  stands, 
Where  the  city  of  the  best-bodied  mothers  stands, 
There  the  great  city  stands." 
29 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

The  ideal  which  has  been  slowly  shaping  itself  before 
our  eyes  is  not  a  military  State  (the  defences  of  the  coun- 
try are  subordinate,  a  means  to  an  end),  and  not  a 
commercial  or  industrial  State  (the  production  of 
wealth  is  merely  a  means  to  an  end),  but  a  community 
of  men  and  women  in  which  health  and  well-being  shall 
be  general,  and  the  individual  shall  have  the  fullest 
opportunity  to  contribute  all  of  which  he  is  capable  to 
the  good  of  the  whole.  This  ideal  of  a  nation  must  be 
presented  in  glowing  colours,  and  in  sufficient  detail,  to 
captivate  the  citizens,  and  to  fire  the  imagination  of  the 
youth,  as  military  glory  did  in  the  past,  and  as  com- 
mercial success  does  in  the  present. 

If  only  the  ideal  can  be  adequately  expressed,  and  all 
can  understand  at  what  we  are  aiming,  the  tug  of  the 
future  will  lead  us  to  its  realisation.  And  this  has  been 
the  work  of  our  prophets,  this  is  the  thought  of  Democ- 
racy, the  dream  of  Eugenics.  Let  us  gather  together  the 
lessons  of  our  teachers,  and  seek  to  harmonise  them  in 
a  consistent  picture  of  what  we  wish  our  nation  to  be. 
We  will  not  dip  too  far  into  the  future,  but  will  try  to 
trace  the  paths  which  start  out  from  just  before  our  feet 
to  the  fulfilment  of  the  preconceived  ideal. 


SO 


CHAPTEE  III 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  THE  NATIONAL  IDEAL 

1.  FIRST  of  all,  and  foundation  of  all,  is  Health.  Our 
national  ideal  is  to  obtain  and  to  keep  a  healthy  popula- 
tion. We  see  clearly  now  that  a  large  industrial  com- 
munity, gathering  necessarily  for  the  most  part  in  cities 
and  large  towns,  can  only  be  kept  in  health,  if  the  gov- 
ernment, national  and  local,  takes  up  the  matter  seri- 
ously, and  persistently,  with  large  and  inclusive  plans 
of  action,  which  aim  not  only  at  the  cure,  but  at  the 
prevention,  of  disease.  Very  remarkable  results  have 
been  achieved  in  repressing  zymotic  diseases,  by  the  ac- 
tion of  local  authorities  in  enforcing  the  regulations 
which  medical  science  prescribes.  The  scourges  of 
small-pox  and  typhus  have  been  repressed  within  such 
narrow  limits  that  we  hardly  realise  now  what  a  terror 
these  diseases  were  to  our  fathers.  We  expect  our  gov- 
ernment now  to  take  vigorous  action  to  deal  with  the 
great  national  scourge  of  consumption.  We  see  that  it 
is  no  longer  merely  a  question  of  individual  suffering; 
it  is  even  more  a  question  of  national  suffering.  Our 
sixty  thousand  consumptives,  most  of  them  the  young 
and  serviceable  sinews  of  the  national  life,  annually  pin- 
ing away  and  dying  prematurely,  when  their  work  is 
just  begun,  constitute  a  national  disease,  a  consumption 

31 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

which  we  must,  as  a  nation,  face,  and  if  possible  over- 
come. A  crusade  against  consumption  should  enlist  the 
sympathy  and  enthusiasm  of  our  nation  to-day,  as  Coeur 
de  Lion's  crusade  against  the  Saracen  stirred  the  heart 
of  England  in  the  twelfth  century.  Our  enemies  are 
not  Germans  but  germs ;  and  both  Germans  and  British 
should  have  their  hands  full  with  the  noble  warfare 
against  the  unseen  destroyers  of  the  human  race. 

But  we  cannot  be  content  with  crusades  against  the 
great  plagues  which  devastate  our  population.  Our  pur- 
pose is  more  searching  and  more  far-reaching.  We 
want  to  secure  the  birth  of  healthy  children,  and  to  train 
up  the  children  from  the  beginning  in  healthy  ways. 
And  it  becomes  increasingly  a  national  ideal  to  prevent 
infant  mortality,  and  the  unwholesome  restriction  of 
families. 

The  sinister  countenance  of  Malthus  has  vanished 
among  the  spectres  of  the  past.  The  groundless  scare, 
that  population  may  overtake  the  means  of  subsistence, 
which  made  it  seem  a  virtue  of  prudence  a  generation 
ago  to  remain  celibate  or  to  produce  only  small  families, 
has  been  dissipated  by  the  enormous  advances  in  the 
arts  of  tilling  the  soil,  of  transit,  and  of  mechanical 
processes.  And,  further,  we  now  plainly  recognise  that 
the  wealth  of  a  country  consists  not  in  material  products 
at  all,  but  in  the  number  and  succession  of  healthy  and 
vigorous  lives.  The  prophetic  oracle:  "A  man  shall 
be  as  the  gold  of  Ophir,"  is  realised  in  a  sense  which  the 
prophet  did  not  intend.  The  wealth  of  the  country  is 
its  manhood  and  its  womanhood.  The  more  healthy 

32 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

human  beings  there  are  in  these  islands,  the  richer  we 
are.  Human  hands,  human  brains,  human  hearts,  are 
the  only  real  property,  the  only  serviceable  wealth.  Our 
debased  coinage  is  the  debased  humanity  that  we  suffer 
to  grow  up.  Our  poverty  is,  that  so  large  a  proportion 
of  this  human  wealth  is  wasted.  The  hands  are  idle,  or 
occupied  in  stealing  or  in  other  iniquities.  The  brain  is 
ill-nourished,  unemployed,  or  wasted  by  the  wrong  use. 
The  hearts  are  chilled,  or  checked,  or  provoked.  Our 
people  degenerate,  and  then  of  what  use  is  the  pile  of 
capital,  or  the  vast  accumulation  of  machinery  and 
means  of  production  ?  The  idle,  useless  members  of  so- 
ciety are  our  disease. 

With  the  passing  of  the  Malthusian  nightmare  we 
recognise  our  true  function  as  a  nation,  which  is  to  be 
fruitful  and  to  replenish  the  earth.  The  large  family 
with  insufficient  food,  without  parental  care,  ill-taught 
and  untrained,  is  still  to  be  deprecated.  But  the  well- 
being  of  the  country  lies  in  large  families,  properly 
nourished,  properly  trained,  properly  educated,  morally 
and  spiritually  developed.  Eugenics  becomes  a  method 
of  patriotism.  The  worker  in  this  science  is  now  a 
greater  national  benefactor  than  the  soldier  or  the  cap- 
tain of  industry.  We  now  ask,  what  will  secure  the 
birth  of  healthy  children?  How  can  the  diseased  and 
unfit  be  prevented  from  propagating  their  infirmities  to 
their  helpless  offspring?  How  can  the  healthy  and  the 
fit  be  encouraged  to  undertake  the  solemn  responsibili- 
ties of  parenthood  ?  M.  Guyau,  groaning  over  the  decay 
of  population  in  Prance,  and  complaining  that  his  coim- 

33 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

try  was  gaily  dancing  down  the  way  of  death,  seriously 
advocated  the  appointment  of  apostles  to  preach  to  the 
French  from  the  town  halls  of  France  the  duty  of  parent- 
hood !  We  need  teachers  in  pulpits  and  college  chairs, 
in  schools,  in  papers  and  books,  to  bring  home  to  our 
people  to-day  the  truth  that  the  best  service  we  can 
render  to  the  State  is  to  bring  up  wholesome  and  effi- 
cient sons  and  daughters,  to  be  the  life  of  the  nation  in 
the  immediate  future. 

It  becomes  necessary  for  parents,  not  only  to  under- 
take the  task  of  parenthood,  eschewing  the  selfish  fears 
which  prevent  children  from  being  born,  but  to  under- 
stand the  laws  of  health  and  the  methods  of  early  train- 
ing, so  that  they  may  bring  up  their  children,  strong 
and  well,  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord. 
The  home-life,  which  has  played  a  large  part  in  this 
country,  and  has  given  to  our  race  a  certain  faculty  for 
making  homes  all  over  the  earth,  must  be  with  all  love 
and  enthusiasm  preserved.  The  ideal  home  is  part  of 
the  national  ideal.  All  the  tendencies  which  weaken  and 
impair  the  pure,  strong,  and  happy  home-life  should  be 
resisted.  Government  should  discourage  them;  we  all 
should  cease  to  foster  them.  And  not  only  in  the  home ; 
in  schools  also,  and  by  wholesome  education  through 
the  years  of  adolescence,  it  becomes  the  national  task  to 
train  up  and  to  discipline  the  young  life  in  hardihood, 
efficiency,  and  sanity. 

2.  From  Health  we  pass  insensibly  to  Wealth,  be- 
cause, as  we  have  seen,  we  recognise  the  wealth  of  a 
country  in  the  number  of  its  healthy  and  efficient  citi- 

34 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

zens.  But  it  is  necessary  to  look  at  the  problem  of 
wealth,  in  the  common  acceptation  of  that  term.  What 
is  our  national  ideal  on  this  subject?  Once,  no  doubt, 
it  was  that  our  country  should  be  the  paradise  of  the 
rich  and  the  purgatory  of  the  poor.  Everything  was 
designed,  laws  were  made,  government  was  carried  on, 
to  protect  the  rich  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  property, 
and  to  secure  to  the  poor  the  privilege  of  working  for 
the  rich.  According  to  the  satirist,  the  people  were 
ranged  on  the  village  green  as  the  rich  went  to  church, 
singing  the  pious  hymn, 

"  God  bless  the  squire,  and  all  his  rich  relations, 
And  teach  us  poorer  folk  to  keep  our  stations." 

This  was  the  implicit  thought  of  our  national  life,  this 
was  the  tendency  which  things  unconsciously  took.  But 
can  it  be  said  that  it  is  our  national  ideal  to-day?  If 
a  few  fortunate  persons,  shut  off  from  the  breath  of  the 
national  life,  still  cherish  this  faded  and  unworthy  ideal, 
the  nation  has  left  them  far  behind.  Wow,  all  parties 
in  political  life,  and  all  thinkers  and  leaders,  would  af- 
firm that  our  main  object,  so  far  as  material  wealth  is 
concerned,  is  to  have  it  in  "  widest  commonalty  spread." 
We  are  set  on  discovering  the  ways  by  which  naturally, 
automatically,  and  without  injustice  to  any,  the  shares 
of  all  may  be  more  equally  allotted. 

A  new  ideal  has  slowly  but  surely  emerged,  and 
everyone,  asked  suddenly  what  it  is  that  we  are  aiming 
at,  would  probably  say:  We  are  aiming  at  such  a  dis- 
tribution of  wealth  as  would  set  every  family  well  above 

35 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

the  bare  margin  of  subsistence,  and  make  it  possible  for 
every  child  to  be  brought  up,  and  educated,  in  health 
and  strength  and  efficiency.  The  investigations  of  Dr. 
Charles  Booth  and  of  Mr.  Bowntree,  which  showed  that 
a  third  of  our  population  was  not  receiving  enough  to 
secure  a  wholesome  subsistence,  have  stirred  the  con- 
science of  the  nation.  Property  is  important.  But  the 
people  are  more  important.  The  national  policy  has 
been  directed  to  preserving  property;  now  it  is  directed 
to  preserving  people.  It  is  the  one  settled  and  inflexi- 
ble purpose  of  economists  and  politicians  (so  far  as  they 
express  the  national  conscience)  to  find  how  every 
worker  may  find  work,  and  all  work  may  be  paid  with  a 
living  wage.  The  interest  in  securing  the  wealth  of  the 
rich  has  passed  over  (even  among  the  rich  themselves) 
into  the  concern  to  secure  the  life,  the  wholesome  and 
worthy  life,  of  the  poor. 

It  has  become  our  national  ideal  to  remove  the  re- 
proach that,  while  we  are  the  richest  of  the  nations,  we 
have  more  pauperism  than  any  other,  and  a  poverty 
which  is  almost  as  colossal  as  our  wealth. 

There  are  some  among  us  who  think  that  the  end  is 
to  be  gained  by  the  policy  of  State  Socialism  expounded 
in  the  great  work  of  Marx;  there  are  others  who  mis- 
trust a  doctrinaire  Socialism,  and  yet  insensibly  gravi- 
tate towards  the  same  practical  measures  which  Social- 
ists would  immediately  advocate;  there  is  a  third  party, 
which  dreads  and  detests  the  very  name,  and  all  that  is 
popularly  understood  by  Socialism,  and  yet  they  are  aim- 
ing at  the  same  object  as  Socialists,  and  decry  the  method 

36 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

because  they  do  not  think  that  it  will  achieve  the  result. 
Socialists,  Liberals,  Conservatives,  are  no  longer  divided 
in  their  object.  They  have  all  tacitly  agreed  to  revise 
the  notion  of  the  economic  goal  which  the  nation  is  seek- 
ing. That  object  is  no  longer  the  accumulation  of 
wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  but  the  extinction  of 
pauperism,  and  the  reduction  of  poverty  within  its  nar- 
rowest possible  limits.  Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at 
the  three  forces,  or  armies,  which  are  bent  on  carrying 
the  same  menacing  citadel  from  different  sides.  The 
famous  remark  of  Sir  William  Harcourt :  "  We  are  all 
Socialists  now,"  has  so  much  truth  in  it,  that  certain 
objects  which  have  been  set  before  us  by  doctrinaire 
Socialists  have  come  to  be  accepted  by  the  whole  com- 
munity. But  the  Socialists  have  their  own  view  of  the 
way  by  which  the  objects  are  to  be  reached.  Collective, 
as  opposed  to  private,  possession  is  the  formula  which 
carries  us  nearest  to  the  Socialist  ideal.  The  indis- 
pensable means  of  production,  earth  and  sea  and  air, 
cannot  be  claimed  by  individuals,  except  so  far  as  they 
hold  them  in  trust  for  the  good  of  the  community.  The 
nation,  for  example,  is  here,  on  these  islands ;  the  ground 
beneath  its  feet,  the  air  above,  and  the  sea  around,  are 
the  necessary  conditions  of  its  existence.  It  cannot  part 
with  the  control  of  the  air,  or  allow  a  monopolist  to  tax 
us  all  for  the  right  of  breathing.  It  cannot  part  with 
the  control  of  the  sea,  and  allow  enemies  to  blockade 
our  ports  or  raid  our  fisheries.  Neither  can  it  part  with 
the  equally  indispensable  means  of  existence,  the  land. 
Whatever  rights  of  property  in  land  are  granted  to  indi- 

37 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

viduals,  those  rights  must  be  subject  to  the  national  con- 
trol, and  revocable  in  the  interests  of  the  nation. 

Whatever  can  be  owned,  and  more  advantageously 
used,  by  the  community  than  by  private  owners,  should 
be,  think  Socialists,  kept  in  the  hands  of  the  community. 
This  broad  principle  of  Collectivism  now  floats  before 
our  eyes,  and,  notwithstanding  the  very  natural  re- 
sistance of  monopolists  and  privileged  owners,  it  more 
and  more  shapes  our  aims  and  directs  our  practical  legis- 
lation. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  us  are  opposed  to  a  doc- 
trinaire Socialism  because  the  object  in  view  may  be 
frustrated  by  withdrawing  too  largely  the  motives  of 
personal  energy  and  initiative.  Broadly  speaking,  Lib- 
erals who  are  not  Socialists  will  argue  that  the  total  in- 
come of  the  country,  obtained  under  present  conditions, 
in  which  the  workers  work  at  the  spur  of  necessity, 
would,  if  divided  among  the  whole  population,  yield  but 
£30  a  head  per  annum.  Only  eleven  or  twelve  shillings 
a  week  each !  That  is  little  more  than  a  bare  subsistence. 
What  is  to  be  dreaded  is,  that  if  the  spur  of  personal 
need  were,  under  a  Socialist  regime,  removed,  the  gross 
production  for  our  population  might  sink  far  below  that 
level.  And,  the  Liberal  will  urge,  the  close  and  neces- 
sarily severe  organisation  of  a  Socialist  State  might 
destroy  the  spring  and  impulse  and  joy  of  life.  The  old 
passion  of  individual  liberty  is  in  the  English  blood,  and 
the  ideal  of  a  Socialist  order,  with  its  greater  security 
against  starvation,  haunts  the  English  mind  with  the 
fear  of  a  spiritual  starvation  which  many  dread  more 

38 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

than  physical  want.  Englishmen  are  not  idealists;  they 
are  plain  and  practical;  but  they  demand  personal 
freedom;  they  cannot  breathe  if  they  are  overorgan- 
ised. 

The  Liberal,  therefore,  aiming  at  the  Socialist  object, 
is  content  to  work  towards  a  more  equal  distribution  of 
wealth,  and  to  claim  an  ever-increasing  proportion  of 
private  incomes  for  State  purposes,  when  the  income 
rises  well  above  the  line  of  a  modest  competence. 

But  even  the  "  Diehards  "  of  Individualism,  and  the 
stoutest  defenders  of  Tory  tradition,  are  not  so  far  as 
they  seem  from  agreement  with  these  modern  ideals. 
They  are  distrustful  of  Socialist  and  Liberal  methods, 
but  they  fully  accept  the  object  which  those  other  parties 
have  in  view.  They  are  opposed  to  spoliation  and  rob- 
bery; but  an  uneasy  suspicion  has  invaded  their  minds 
that  perhaps  the  masses  of  the  dispossessed  are  the  vic- 
tims of  some  historic  and  chronic  robbery;  it  sometimes 
dawns  upon  them  that  they  are  enjoying  perhaps  the 
proceeds  of  ancient  spoliation. 

And  in  this  altered  temper  there  is  an  increasing 
readiness  to  face  any  cautious,  moderate  and  well-con- 
sidered plan  for  increasing  small  holdings,  or  for  giving 
to  the  masses  of  the  people  opportunities  of  progress 
and  promotion.  The  Labour  Member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  to-day  is  received  by  no  one  more  respectfully 
than  by  the  most  outright  representatives  of  the  older 
order. 

Amid  the  clash  and  conflict  of  parties,  the  -national 
ideal  has  clearly  formed  itself :  to  get  rid  of  pauperism, 

39 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

to  make  poverty  unnecessary,  to  make'  national  wealth 
the  possession  of  a  whole  nation. 

3.  But  Health  and  Wealth  are  only  means  to  a  higher 
end.  The  national  ideal  aims  at  a  wholesome  Intel- 
lectual Life  for  every  member  of  the  community.  We 
can  at  last  truly  say  that  education  means  something  to 
us,  and  that  as  a  nation  we  accept  the  reiterated  injunc- 
tion :  "  Educate,  educate,  educate."  May  we  not  claim 
that  we  now  consider  universal  education,  the  education 
of  each  unit  up  to  the  measure  of  individual  capacity, 
the  object  set  before  this  country?  We  have  a  Board 
of  Education,  and  a  Minister  in  the  Cabinet  responsible 
for  its  administration.  For  forty  years  the  beneficent 
system  of  elementary  education,  initiated  by  that  heroic 
spirit,  W.  E.  Forster,  has  been  at  work,  and  it  has  trans- 
formed our  country.  That  was  only  a  beginning.  The 
methods  of  education  were  imperfect;  the  curricula 
were  tentative;  the  difficulty  of  religious  teaching  and 
of  sectarian  interests  has  clogged  the  progress  of  the 
work,  and  is  not  yet  removed.  The  secondary  and  tech- 
nical schools  have  not  yet  been  dealt  with  on  the  same 
broad,  national  scale.  Universities  are  slowest  of  all  to 
develop  and  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  needs  of  new 
times. 

But  the  ideal  has  formed  itself,  and  is  struggling 
to  its  accomplishment  in  defiance  of  all  opposition. 
Education  is  now  a  science  as  well  as  an  art,  and  it  is 
possible  to  take  a  wide  inclusive  view  of  the  results  which 
we  wish  to  attain.  The  modifications  in  elementary 
schools,  the  provision  and  linking  up  of  secondary 

40 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

schools,  a  sufficient  and  accessible  supply  of  University 
teaching,  can  be  achieved  so  soon  as  the  nation  sees  the 
problem  as  a  whole  and  realises  what  has  to  be  done. 
It  is  therefore  well  worth  while  to  spend  a  little  time  in 
visualising  the  ideal,  and  in  allowing  the  beauty  and 
charm  and  desirableness  of  it  to  take  possession  of  us. 
A  human  mind  is  a  potentiality  of  faculties.  If  it  can 
be  elicited,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  educated;  if  it 
can  be  encouraged  and  trained  to  develop  itself,  so  that 
it  becomes  all  that  it  is  capable  of  becoming,  and  does 
all  that  it  was  designed  to  do,  it  is  a  priceless  possession 
acquired  by  the  national  life.  Each  stunted,  ill-devel- 
oped, perverted  mind  is  a  loss,  an  irreparable  loss.  In 
the  exceptional  cases  of  genius  we  are  swift  to  recognise 
the  disaster,  when  through  unkindly  circumstances,  the 
chill  of  poverty  or  of  neglect,  or  any  other  cause,  the 
gifted  mind  is  removed  by  untimely  decay  or  death. 
Chatterton,  Kirke  White,  Keats,  pass  away  in  their 
marvellous  boyhood;  and  all  their  splendid  possibilities 
are  lost  to  us.  By  their  fragmentary  and  precocious 
achievements  we  only  guess  at  what  might  have  been. 

But,  as  the  ancients  would  have  said,  each  human 
being  has  his  "  genius."  Every  mind  has  a  place  to 
fill  and  a  work  to  do,  and  the  loss  of  its  failure  is  not 
its  own  loss  alone,  but  the  nation's.  The  nation  there- 
fore girds  herself  for  her  great  task  to  elicit  and  to  train 
the  minds  of  which  she  is  composed. 

Her  first  thought  is  for  the  little  children.  They 
must  be  taught  in  bright  and  beautiful  and  healthy 
schools,  by  methods  which  lure  the  mind  to  exert  itself, 

41 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

and  make  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  more  at- 
tractive than  the  baser  fruits  which  the  trees  of  life  seem 
to  offer.  The  teachers  must  be  trained  for  their  delicate 
work,  and  enthusiastic  in  its  discharge.  From  standard 
to  standard  the  children  must  be  led,  with  sufficient  indi- 
vidual care  to  mark  and  to  train  the  capabilities  of  all. 

When  the  elementary  school  is  left  behind,  there  must 
be  a  separation.  The  larger  proportion  must  pass  to 
manual  work;  and  the  nation  is  bound  to  see  that  they 
are  fitted  for  their  work,  apprenticed  to  a  trade  which 
offers  them  the  chance  of  an  honourable  living.  It  is 
the  nation's  loss,  more  than  the  parent's,  when  a  child 
leaves  school  to  sell  newspapers,  or  do  any  of  the  odd 
jobs  which  lead  to  nothing,  and  leave  the  boy  or  girl 
after  two  or  three  years  of  loafing,  useless  and  idle  for 
life.  It  is  that  period  of  adolescence,  between  leaving 
school  and  maturity,  which  the  nation  is  most  concerned 
to  watch  and  to  guard  and  to  secure.  Our  streets,  our 
public  amusements,  our  literature,  must  all  be  super- 
vised and  controlled,  to  preserve  these  growing  citizens 
from  demoralisation. 

But,  on  leaving  the  elementary  school,  every  child 
should  have  open  before  him,  or  her,  the  secondary 
school,  if  any  special  mental  capacity  shows  that  a  more 
extended  literary  or  scientific  training  is  worth  while. 
Handiwork  and  the  business  of  life  should  be  a  sec- 
ondary school  to  all ;  but  there  is  always  a  minority  whose 
function  will  lie  in  intellectual  directions,  and  it  is  a 
misfortune  that  any  child  who  has  the  gifts  should  be 
lost  to  the  community  for  want  of  that  further  training. 

42 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

More  especially  an  industrial  nation  should  have  its  tech- 
nical schools,  well  equipped  and  accessible,  that  all  who 
show  aptitude  for  such  training  may  be  prepared  for 
manufacturing,  for  agriculture,  for  scientific  discovery, 
by  the  very  best  teaching  that  the  nation  can  give. 

Then  the  Universities  should  open  their  doors,  in  all 
large  towns  and  even  in  country  centres,  to  give  the 
higher  training  to  every  youth  and  girl  who  is  capable 
of  original  work,  or  is  designed  for  teaching  others.  The 
object  is  not  to  increase  the  number  of  those  who  get 
a  University  education,  but  to  make  the  University  serve 
its  appropriate  purpose,  which  is  not  to  put  an  imaginary 
cachet  on  a  few  favoured  individuals,  erecting  a  class 
barrier  between  them  and  others,  but  to  offer  the  fullest 
training  possible  to  that  minority  of  the  population  who, 
by  their  native  capacity  and  character,  are  capable  of 
being  the  teachers,  the  guides  and  leaders  of  the  future. 

This  then  is  our  national  ideal;  an  educated  com- 
munity—  not  a  herd  of  clerks  in  black  coats,  of  pro- 
fessional men  treading  each  other  down  in  their  effort 
to  grasp  the  spoils  of  their  particular  careers,  of  a 
jeunesse  doree  trained  to  enjoy  itself  and  to  claim  by 
right  all  the  fields  of  human  delight;  but  —  a  varied 
population,  in  which  each  one  is  developed  and  trained 
to  the  utmost  for  the  task  assigned  by  faculty  or  oppor- 
tunity, task  of  the  hand,  of  the  brain,  or  of  the  spirit. 

4.  Certainly  the  educational  ideal  should,  and  indeed 
must,  include  both  Moral  and  Spiritual  Culture.  But 
this  is  so  imperfectly  realised  by  the  public  at  large 
that  it  is  necessary,  in  framing  the  national  ideals,  to 

43 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

give  separate  attention  to  the  moral  and  the  spiritual 
sides;  not,  of  course,  that  they  can  be  dealt  with  sep- 
arately in  practice,  but  that  they  are  apt  to  be  thrust 
aside  in  the  purely  intellectual  work  of  education  which 
at  present  possesses  the  public  mind.  We  know  that  as 
a  nation  we  can  only  hold  our  own  among  the  nations 
by  a  better  and  more  complete  education,  mental,  tech- 
nical, practical.  That  motive  for  maintaining  schools 
and  universities  is  only  too  liable  to  keep  the  moral  and 
the  spiritual  out  of  view. 

We  must  therefore  consider  separately  our  moral  and 
our  spiritual  ideals,  by  which  the  nation  can  live  and 
progress.  And  first,  the  Moral. 

We  have  a  national  ideal  of  morality.  By  it  the 
nation  has  grown  and  reached  its  present  state  in  the 
world.  And  in  the  nation's  growth  that  ideal  also  has 
grown,  luring  us  on  in  its  expanding  glory  to  things 
which  are  beyond.  The  British  ideal  of  character  and 
conduct,  for  man  and  woman  too,  to  be  set  before  chil- 
dren in  examples  even  from  the  cradle,  is  expressed  no 
longer  in  the  four  cardinal  virtues  of  antiquity,  but  in 
these  seven  —  Veracity,  Cleanness,  Courage,  Energy, 
Justice,  Altruism,  Faith.  About  these  much  can  and 
ought  to  be  said,  but  not  here.  All  that  can  be  done 
now  is  to  bring  into  the  consciousness  of  the  reader 
how  these  terms  express  the  kind  of  person  which  he 
expects  others  to  be,  and  is  bound  therefore  to  be  him- 
self. 

Nothing  takes  us  nearer  the  heart  of  the  character 
which  this  country  admires  and  desires  than  the  pride 

44 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

with  which  it  has  been  said  that  "  the  word  of  an  Eng- 
lishman "  is  a  guarantee  throughout  the  world.  Noth- 
ing have  we  more  cause  to  dread  than  the  slackening  of 
veracity  which  the  intrusion  of  other  breeds  is  apt  to 
bring.  The  moral  theology  which  excuses  and  allows 
for  equivocation  is,  and  has  always  been,  to  this  country, 
anathema.  That  man  and  woman  should  say  the  thing 
that  is,  should  be  forthright  and  downright,  free  from 
subterfuges  and  double  entendre,  sincerely  anxious 
neither  to  deceive  oneself  nor  others,  transparent,  faith- 
ful to  pledges,  ready  rather  to  die  than  to  go  back  from 
one's  word  —  this  is  the  demand  which  we  make  on 
others  and  on  ourselves.  Suffer  anything  rather  than 
lie;  recognise  that  no  good  cause,  least  of  all  the  best, 
can  ever  be  served  by  lying.  Business  depends  on  hon- 
our. National  success,  in  business  and  in  government, 
comes  wholly  from  the  habits  of  veracity  which  are 
maintained  among  the  people. 

Then  the  cleanness  we  demand  is  not  only  external 
or  physical.  We  demand  clean  linen,  the  morning  bath, 
the  scrubbed  hearthstone  and  the  polished  door-handle; 
dirt,  untidiness,  slovenliness,  are  odious  to  us.  True. 
But  the  value  of  this  cleanness  is  that  it  is  the  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace.  We 
are  against  uncleanly  lives,  lust  and  lechery,  the  self- 
indulgence  of  the  man  of  pleasure,  the  contamination 
of  the  fallen  woman.  We  are  set  on  boyish  purity,  on 
the  strong,  self-controlled,  chivalrous  young  manhood, 
on  the  essential  chastity  and  wholesomeness  of  women. 
We  dread  and  deprecate  the  lower  ideals  of  other  na- 

45 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

tions.  We  are  resolved  to  stamp  out  the  foul  literature, 
the  pictures,  and  other  provocatives  of  vice,  by  which 
the  young  are  seduced.  This  cleanness  of  life,  of 
thought,  of  word,  wins  genuine  respect  among  us.  We 
all  desire  it. 

Courage  is  a  virtue  common  to  humanity  and  to  lower 
animals.  But  moral  courage  is  the  virtue  which  this 
country  sets  before  itself  to  achieve.  Sir  Andrew 
Frazer  in  India,  a  civil  servant,  is  the  typical  Briton. 
Once,  when  an  elephant  had  gone  mad,  and  was  wildly 
charging  the  retinue,  certain  to  maul  and  kill  some  of 
them,  Frazer  quietly  turned  on  the  wild  animal,  and 
fired  straight  at  the  trunk;  the  elephant  wheeled  about 
and  fled ;  Frazer  looked  round,  and  there  was  an  Indian 
gentleman  who,  unarmed,  had  remained  by  the  Sahib. 
On  another  occasion,  when  he  was  Lieut. -Governor  of 
Bengal,  as  he  entered  a  great  assembly,  an  infatuated 
Bengalee  rose,  presented  a  pistol  at  his  breast  and  pulled 
the  trigger.  Happily  that  one  chamber  of  the  revolver 
was  unloaded.  Before  the  assassin  could  discharge  the 
next,  which  was  loaded,  he  was  overpowered  by  his 
fellow-students.  Again  Frazer  found  a  valiant  pro- 
tector in  a  Hindoo  of  high  station  standing  beside  him, 
who  threw  his  arms  about  him,  and  interposed  his  own 
body  between  him  and  the  assailant.  The  lieutenant- 
governor  went  on  with  the  meeting,  and  spoke  as  if 
nothing  had  happened.  This  manly  courage  is  dear 
to  the  heart  of  the  Briton. 

The  national  ideal  demands  energy,  scorns  indolence 
and  self-indulgence,  expects  everyone  to  be  active,  effi- 

46 


The  Elements  of  the  National  Ideal 

cient,  strenuous,  untiring.  We  are  slow  to  recognise  the 
virtue  of  intellectual  energy,  and  are  apt  to  lay  an  over- 
emphasis on  what  we  consider  the  practical  side.  But 
we  would  be  a  nation  not  of  dreamers,  but  of  doers. 

We  admire  justice.  At  the  root  of  the  national  char- 
acter is  a  desire  to  be  just  and  to  do  justice.  Fair-play 
is  a  watchword.  We  prefer  to  say  "  Play  the  game,"  to 
descanting  on  justice  in  more  transcendental  regions; 
but  our  chief  claim  on  the  world's  respect  and  admira- 
tion is  that  in  every  colony  and  dependency  we  manage 
to  give  to  justice  a  definite  meaning  and  power,  which 
we  learnt  at  home. 

Altruism  has  entered  at  last  also  into  our  national 
ideal.  Our  boy  scouts  are  taught  to  help  someone  every 
day.  We  admire  the  humble  hero  of  the  mine  or  the 
railway  or  the  fire  brigade,  who  risks  his  life  for  others. 
Our  highest  praise  is  that  a  man  is  unselfish,  forgets 
himself  and  serves  the  rest.  We  are  shy  of  talking 
about  love ;  but  that  is  really  what  we  mean :  "  By  love 
serve  one  another  "  is  a  precept  which  has  entered  into 
our  national  ideal. 

And  faith ;  yes,  we  ask  for  men  who  have  faith  in  the 
people,  faith  in  progress,  faith  in  the  future,  faith  in 
God.  This  last  is  curiously  inwrought  in  our  national 
character.  It  completes  our  moral  ideal.  But  the  men- 
tion of  it  carries  us  upward  on  to  another  plane,  and 
we  must  give  to  it  a  concluding  chapter. 


47 


CHAPTER  IV, 

THE   SPIRITUAL   IDEAL 

ASSUREDLY  we  have  a  national  Spiritual  Ideal.  About 
this  it  is  very  difficult  to  speak.  And  while  about  things 
more  concrete  and  tangible,  with  which  we  have  been 
dealing,  there  is  a  very  general  concurrence,  as  we 
approach  this  underlying  and  invisible  reality  we  are  apt 
to  miss  the  way  and  to  fall  into  disputes.  Perhaps  we 
may  reach  the  common  element  in  which  we  are  all 
agreed  by  casting  our  eyes  backward  for  a  moment. 
Once  the  spiritual  side  of  our  nation  was  Catholic ;  that 
is,  it  was  a  national  part  of  the  powerful  Western 
Church.  At  the  Eef  ormation  a  significant  change  came. 
The  spirituality  of  the  Catholic  Church  no  longer  ex- 
pressed the  faith  of  this  country.  Still  the  attempt 
was  made  to  express  that  faith  by  a  State  Church.  The 
Tudor,  and  afterwards  the  Stuart,  monarchs  took  the 
place  from  which  the  Popes  were  deposed.  But  im- 
mediately the  Puritan  element  in  England,  and  still 
more  in  Scotland,  carried  the  spiritual  ideal  beyond  the 
forms  and  organisation  of  the  church  established. 
Since  then,  the  varied  forms  in  which  the  spiritual  life 
of  this  country  has  sought  expression  have  all  proved  in- 
adequate. Catholic,  Anglican,  Free  Churchman,  strive 

48 


The  Spiritual  Ideal 


to  win  back  the  country  each  to  his  own  form,  with  no 
conspicuous  success;  and  the  hasty  observer  might  con- 
clude that  religion  was  passing  away,  and  that  the  coun- 
try was  now  content  with  a  merely  secular  ideal. 
Kationalism,  and  many  other  "isms/5  are  at  least  as 
loud  in  the  land  as  any  formal  expression  of  a  definite 
Christian  faith.  But  who  that  knows  this  country  will 
be  deceived  by  this  appearance  ?  The  philosophy  of  our 
day  is  spiritual;  when  Bergson  lectures  in  London,  his 
audience  is  so  large  that  it  can  hardly  gain  admission. 
Eucken  succeeds  to  the  place  which  was  once  held  by 
Herbert  Spencer.  All  through  the  thinking  world  to- 
day, and  most  of  all  in  our  own  country,  it  is  recognised 
that  the  spiritual  is  the  only  explanation  that  can  be 
offered  of  the  problem  of  human  life.  The  Spirit  before 
and  beyond  us  is  seeking  in  humanity  a  self-expression. 
Science,  Art,  Politics,  Morality,  Eeligion,  are  the  modes 
in  which  the  Spirit  is  working  towards  an  ultimate  goal. 
Man's  relation  to  that  Spirit,  the  nation's  relation  to 
that  Spirit,  the  world's  relation  to  that  Spirit  —  this  is 
the  most  vital  and  burning  question  of  this,  as  of  every 
other  epoch.  And  it  is  to  be  observed  that  our  national 
ideal  is  that  relation  of  man  to  God  which  Christianity 
has  given  to  us.  The  inadequacy  of  the  churches,  and 
of  archaic  formulae,  to  express  the  mighty  mystery,  ac- 
counts for  the  apparent  indifference  to  religion  and 
neglect  of  church  institutions.  We  await,  no  doubt,  the 
quickening  tides  which  will  purge,  reform,  and  invigor- 
ate the  organised  expressions  of  the  spiritual  life  which 
is  in  us.  But  meanwhile  the  national  faith  remains  the 

49 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

same,  and  in  many  ways  it  is  more  vigorous  and  active 
than  it  has  ever  been  before. 

Let  us  face  the  situation  for  a  moment.  Christianity 
is  the  Divine  power  by  which  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  brotherhood  of  men  can  be  realised.  It  is  not 
only  the  truth  that  one  is  our  Father,  even  God,  and  all 
we  are  brethren;  but  it  is  also  a  dynamic  which  works 
towards  the  realisation  of  that  ideal.  This  is  our  na- 
tional ideal.  We  are  not  content  to  regard  mankind 
simply  on  the  materialistic  side;  we  do  not  admit  that 
science  gives  us  a  sufficient  explanation  of  human  life, 
or  even  a  commanding  motive  for  living.  We  must 
regard  ourselves  and  one  another  as  spiritual,  sprung 
from  a  spiritual  origin,  and  moving  towards  a  spiritual 
result.  This  country  never  in  her  wildest  excesses  of 
riot  or  unbelief  enthroned  Eeason  as  goddess  in  place 
of  God.  As  she  never  for  the  last  four  centuries  identi- 
fied the  spiritual  with  the  organisation  of  the  Church, 
she  does  not,  like  France  or  Italy,  surrender  the  spiritual 
when  she  criticises  or  disregards  the  Church.  This 
country  is  Christian  in  a  very  peculiar,  but  very  genuine, 
sense,  which  none  but  the  most  superficial  observer  can 
mistake.  We  demand  the  recognition  of  God.  Noth- 
ing in  modern  times  has  gone  more  directly  to  the  heart 
of  the  whole  country  than  the  Eecessional: 

"  0  Lord  of  hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget,  lest  we  forget." 

By  a  State  Church,  if  possible,  but,  if  that  be  impossible, 
by  some  other  more  effective  way,  we  British  mean  to 

50 


The  Spiritual  Ideal 


express  our  dependence  on  God  and  our  allegiance  to 
Him.  Christ  moves  before  us  as  our  ideal  of  character ; 
and  His  relation  with  God  is  the  means  of  ours.  We 
acknowledge  the  law  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  We 
perceive  the  power  of  the  Cross. 

It  is  this  deep  underlying  religion  of  the  country 
which  really  shapes  the  national  ideal.  The  concern 
for  man  as  man,  his  health  and  well-being,  his  national 
life  and  prospects;  the  effort  to  educate  the  people;  the 
moral  ideals  and  the  moral  sanctions  which  we  cherish 
and  commend  to  one  another,  are  all  fundamentally 
based  on  the  Christian  faith.  There  are  some  sanguine 
enough  to  believe  that  this  national  ideal,  the  heirloom 
of  our  race,  would  survive,  even  if  the  Christian  faith 
were  to  be  surrendered.  With  that  we  are  not  just  now 
concerned.  The  point  to  be  seized  is  that  the  faith  is 
with  us,  in  unsuspected  power,  and  the  spiritual  ideal 
which  it  presents  is  potent  before  our  eyes  and  in  our 
hearts.  M.  Guyau  wrote  in  France  a  book  on  "  The 
Non-Beligion  of  the  Future."  No  such  book  has  been 
current  in  this  country.  Eather,  he  who  would  express 
the  thought  of  this  country  would  speak  of  the  religion 
of  the  future,  as  contrasted  with  the  non-religion  of 
the  past.  He  would  announce  the  Christ  that  is  to  be, 
that  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of  His  coming  which  was 
given  at  the  beginning.  Our  hope  is  not  to  get  rid  of 
religion,  but  to  get  it;  not  to  abolish  Christianity,  but 
to  realise  it;  not  to  supersede  Christ,  but  to  find  Him. 
And  this  national  ideal  works  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously in  us  all. 

51 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

But  our  national  ideal  cannot  be  described  or  kept 
clearly  before  us  unless  we  preserve  the  stress  which  in 
these  islands  has  always  been  laid  on  liberty.  It  is  as 
our  last  great  Laureate  says :  — 

"  The  land  where  girt  with  friends  or  foes 
A  man  may  speak  the  thing  he  will." 

Some  features  of  the  Victorian  estimate  of  our 
national  ideal  may  change,  and  already  be  changing; 
some  of  the  views  expressed  in  these  pages  may  be  ques- 
tioned by  many  of  our  countrymen;  but  nothing  was 
ever  said  more  characteristic  of  this  country  than  the 
lines :  — 

"  A  land  of  settled  government, 
A  land  of  just  and  old  renown, 
Where  freedom  slowly  broadens  down 

From  precedent  to  precedent." 

That  inclination  to  claim  liberty  and  to  grant  liberty 
is  so  peculiar  a  product  of  our  history  that  we  can 
hardly  imagine  it  disappearing.  Our  friends  from  the 
Continent  are  amazed  when  they  hear  in  great  public 
meetings  subversive  and  anarchical  opinions  received 
with  a  tolerant  smile.  They  wonder  how  order  is  main- 
tained, how  religion  survives,  where  speech  is  so  free. 
But,  indeed,  this  is  why  order  and  religion  among  us 
are  secure.  We  are  the  devotees  of  liberty.  We  have 
an  instinctive  conviction  that  when  liberty  lapses  into 
silence  it  corrects  itself.  We  bear  patiently  with  the 
incidental  disadvantages  of  liberty,  because  we  know  that 

52 


The  Spiritual  Ideal 


the  loss  of  liberty  is  the  greatest  disadvantage  of  all. 
To  other  nations  we  seem  infatuated  in  our  devotion. 
Our  method  of  quelling  discontent  in  Canada,  under 
Lord  Durham's  wise  guidance,  was  to  grant  Canada  full 
local  autonomy.  Europe  was  aghast  when  immediately 
after  the  Boer  War  we  granted  a  full  constitution  to 
South  Africa,  and  a  general  who  fought  against  us  for 
three  years  became  the  prime  minister  of  the  South 
African  Government.  That  to  other  countries  seems 
rash  and  quixotic;  but  it  is  quite  natural  to  us.  We 
feel  in  our  blood  the  elixir  of  liberty.  We  cannot  help 
thinking  that  it  works  in  the  blood  of  others  with  the 
same  effect. 

Political  liberty,  personal  liberty,  the  liberty  of 
prophesying,  religious  liberty,  these  are  the  things  for 
which  our  fathers  fought.  We  fancy  them  the  pal- 
ladium which  came  down  to  us  from  heaven.  These 
we  are  bound  to  maintain.  If  we  are  slack  in  their  de- 
fence, if  we  fail  to  sympathise  with  others  who  are 
striving  for  the  same  priceless  boon,  we  acknowledge 
our  delinquency  and  repent. 

It  is  our  most  honourable  reputation  in  the  Agora  of 
the  world,  that  we  have  always  supported  the  struggles 
of  the  nations  for  liberty,  and  that  wherever  we  govern 
we  accord  personal  and  religious  liberty  to  all.  When 
Lord  Mansfield  gave  the  famous  judgment,  that  even  a 
slave  stepping  on  British  soil  (and  that  was  held  to 
include  the  deck  of  a  British  ship)  was  immediately 
free,  the  heart  of  the  whole  country  responded.  That 
is  to  us  vital  and  central. 

53 


National  Ideals  and  Race-Regeneration 

In  all  our  political  developments,  in  all  our  efforts  at 
social  amelioration,  in  all  our  religious  and  educational 
arrangements,  we  are  bound  to  keep  in  view  the  check 
and  limitation  which  are  imposed  by  this  fundamental 
principle.  We  have  that  in  our  blood  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  us  to  be  manipulated  and  dragooned  by 
a  tyrant,  however  wise  and  beneficent  he  may  be.  'No 
prison,  however  gilded,  will  satisfy  us.  Comfort,  lux- 
ury, ease,  which  sometimes  seem  to  be  the  main  objects 
of  desire,  swiftly  become  intolerable,  and  are  unhesita- 
tingly renounced  if  any  attack  is  made  upon  our  liber- 
ties— 

"  We  must  be  free  or  die,  who  speak  the  tongue 

That  Shakespeare  spake,  the  faith  and  morals  hold 
Which  Milton  held;  in  everything  we  are  sprung 
Of  earth's  first  blood,  have  titles  manifold." 


EPILOGUE 

Now  as  our  national  ideal  becomes  clear  before  our 
eyes,,  we  must  enter  into  the  field  of  our  heritage,  and 
into  the  corresponding  field  of  our  duty.  It  is  ours  to 
impart  to  the  nations  which  are  growing  up  under  the 
Crown,  closely  allied  with  us  in  the  one  Empire,  as  much 
of  our  inheritance  as  they  are  able  and  willing  to  take. 
Our  task  is  so  onerous  that  a  poet  of  the  nineteenth 
century  thought  that  he  saw  this  country  staggering 
under  "  the  too-vast  orb  of  her  fate."  But  with  the  new 
century  has  come  fresh  courage,  and  also,  we  may  hope, 
a  clearer  insight  into  the  nature  of  our  task.  The  nine- 
teenth century  closed  with  a  blatant  blast  of  misguided 
imperialism,  which  the  author  of  the  "  Eecessional " 
corrected.  The  twentieth  opened  with  a  far  saner  and 
soberer  view  of  the  imperial  task.  We  see  now  that  the 
Mother  of  Parliaments  is  not  here  to  override  the 
kindred  parliaments  of  the  Empire,  but  to  set  them  an 
example.  We  understand  that  our  function  is  to  cherish 
our  own  national  ideals,  that  our  sister  nations  may  learn 
from  us,  and  acquire  the  fruits  of  our  long  travail.  As 
we  desire  our  own  nation  to  be  free,  as  we  make  it  our 
object  to  maintain  a  healthy,  prosperous  population,  as 
we  lay  the  stress  on  the  mental  and  moral  and.  spiritual 
training  of  the  individual  for  the  duties  of  our  citizen- 
ship, and  the  service  of  the  human  race;  so  we  desire 

55 


Epilogue 

that  the  other  nations  under  the  Crown  should  grow  in 
liberty,  in  the  arts  of  self-government,  in  the  physical 
and  spiritual  training  which  to  us  gives  the  value  of 
human  life.  Our  task  is  not  to  repress  or  coerce,  but 
to  develop  and  to  lead.  "We  passionately  believe  in  our 
own  country,  and  are  thankful  to  God  for  its  traditions 
and  ideals;  our  wish  for  the  whole  Empire  is  that  our 
traditions  and  ideals  may  be  reproduced  spontaneously 
and  eagerly  wherever  the  Crown  extends  its  unifying 
sway.  Those  vaster  nations,  Canada,  South  Africa, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  India,  we  would  have  as  near 
as  may  be  what  we  are  ourselves. 

And  while  our  first  task  is  to  enrich  and  cultivate  our 
own  imperial  federation,  our  task  in  the  whole  world  is 
similar,  though  less  stringent.  As  we  cherish  our  own 
national  ideal,  we  sympathise  with  every  nation  in  which 
the  national  consciousness  is  strong.  We  desire  to  be 
cosmopolitan  —  not  in  the  sense  that  national  feeling, 
national  pride,  patriotism,  should  be  effaced  in  favour 
of  a  diluted  and  ill-conceived  sentiment  for  a  diffuse 
humanity,  but  in  the  sense  that  we  heartily  wish  other 
nations  well,  that  we  respect  their  independence  and 
their  national  ideals,  and  that  we  make  it  our  object, 
not  only  to  live  at  peace  with  them,  but  actively  to  pro- 
mote their  welfare. 

We  conceive  the  whole  human  race  as  one,  made  of 
one  blood,  united  in  a  necessary  solidarity.  It  is  one 
as  a  family  of  nations,  in  which  there  are  older,  middle- 
aged,  adolescent,  and  baby  nations.  The  African,  as 
Dr.  Karl  Kumm  says,  are  the  baby  nations  of  the  great 

56 


Epilogue 

family.  In  the  family  there  is  no  foolish  strife  for 
precedence;  each  takes  the  place  allotted  by  age  and 
qualifications.  There  is  no  envy  and  hatred  and  malice, 
because  the  prosperity  of  one  is  the  prosperity  of  all. 
Each  nation  in  this  family  is  to  cultivate  itself,  in  order 
to  contribute  its  part  to  the  life  of  the  whole.  Its  ob- 
ject cannot  be  to  subjugate  the  family.  The  Napoleonic 
dream  is  a  ghastly  and  devilish  nightmare.  The  object 
rather  is  that  each  may  be  developed  to  the  utmost  of 
its  capacity,  that  the  family  may  be  enriched;  and,  as 
is  proper  in  a  family,  that  the  older  may  serve  the 
younger,  and  all  may  deal  tenderly  and  wisely  with  the 
babies. 

In  this  way  the  national  ideal  harmonises  with  the 
international  ideals,  and  all  grow  into  the  cosmopolitan 
ideal.  God  is  one  and  man  is  one ;  but  God  has  set  man 
in  families,  and  in  nations,  that  they  may  learn  to  love 
Him  with  all  their  strength,  and  to  love  one  another 
with  a  pure  heart  fervently. 


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